What a bittersweet day it was yesterday! Our dear, dear client, Tracy, who suffers with psychiatric difficulties, and her wonderful husband, Jon, had fully-trained Great Pyrenees, Apollo, as her Service Dog for a year. Unfortunately, even though their bond was strong and Apollo was a wonderful Service Dog, over time, Apollo started bonding more with Jon. Tracy made the tremendous sacrifice to adopt out her beloved Apollo to a Wounded Warrior, Brian, who is currently at Laurel Ridge. Brian was a dog handler in the military, and has extensive experience with dog training. He has a very sad story – the dog he worked with on deployment became extremely special to him, as they saw a lot of combat together. When the mission ended, however, they took the dog away from Brian. This started his PTSD and other symptoms. He tried his hardest to get that dog back, and SHOULD have, but he found out that the military had “retired” the dog and adopted it out! He says it was probably the greatest trauma of his life.

He saw Apollo on our website, and fell in love. Tracy, Jon, and I went to Laurel Ridge and the bond was instant between Brian and Apollo. Brian was so sensitive to Tracy, who was both sad to say goodbye to Apollo, but so happy he was going to someone like Brian. Laurel Ridge is letting him stay there while he goes through treatment. We also saw client Joseph, who was there with his SD, Viva!!

Apollo will be in wonderful hands. And the happy ending to this is that Tracy finally found a dog that suits her better – the beautiful Cooper, lovingly fostered by Margaret Melvin. Cooper is almost fully trained and clings to Tracy in a much more helpful way than Apollo did.

Two SDs and two happy owners! Attaching a picture of Tracy’s new SDIT!!!

God bless you, Tracy and Jon, for your generous sacrifice. You are paying it forward. And thank you, Margaret, for giving the gift of Cooper to Tracy! Here is a picture of Apollo, then a picture of Cooper!