COLD SEASON

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything new for over a week, I've been sick with a fairly bad cold and I haven't had the energy to post anything new. I have a lot to write about, I just need to get the energy to do it...

ROTTEN BANANA ROLLOVER…

It was a very hot afternoon in mid September and working Dobbs around the block to his usual relieving spot wasn’t really a good option. Instead, I heeled Dobby using my white cane down to a small piece of grass by the back driveway of my apartment building so that he could relieve himself.

Now, the day before, Dobby had gotten a bath and oh, was he excited. A full day later he was still bouncing off the walls, prancing around as if to say, “Look at me! I’m so pretty, I’m so pretty and clean!” Right after he had gotten his bath at the grooming salon, he was so over excited by the whole experience that I had to stop him several times en-route to try to calm him down enough so that he could re-focus on his work. Needless to say, Dobby can be a real character sometimes.

As Dobby is wandering around the little patch of grass, he relieves number 1 and I’m waiting to see if he’s going to do number 2 when one of my neighbors, Susan, walks up to us and says hello. Dobby likes Susan a whole lot and I put him into a sit and he gave her his paw. I then put Dobbs into the down position and began chatting with Susan about the latest news from around the building. Well, unbeknown to me, someone had previously dropped a whole banana onto the cement right by the edge of the grass and it had been baking in the hot sun for quite some time. Now, I pay close attention to what Dobbs is doing at all times. I’ve caught him occasionally trying to “sample” things in the grass while he’s sniffing around looking for a good spot to do his business so he knows that I’m watching him. He rarely if ever tries to eat anything on the ground any more but I still keep my eye on him. That doesn’t mean, however, that interesting items on the ground don’t attract his attention from time to time and on this day, that banana, apparently, was fascinating to him. Now Dobbs knew better than to try to eat it but without warning he decided that rotten banana would be a perfect thing to roll around in. Thank goodness he didn't have his harness on when he did it, what a mess that would have been.

Suddenly, I was aware that Dobbs was rolling on his back. I leaned over to scratch his belly thinking that he was still just excited from his bath and because of the fact that Susan was there. Susan said, “Oh my gosh, you do realize that Dobbs is rolling around in an old banana on the ground.” I said, “What! He's rolling around in a banana?” “Yep,” she said, “an old rotten one and it’s all over him.” I ran my hand down Dobbs’ back only to find it covered in warm, rotten, smashed banana. Dobbs was SO proud of himself. I couldn’t believe it. “Dobbs,” I said, “you just got a bath yesterday!” He was wagging his tail so hard it was hitting the side of my leg with a loud “thwap!” “What am I going to do with you,” I said. Susan thought it was kind of funny. I wasn’t that amused. I broke off our conversation and heeled Dobbs back up to my apartment where I tried to clean him off as best I could. It soon became apparent that I was going to have to take him back to the grooming salon to get him re-washed. Of course Dobby was pleased as punch with himself and pranced as he walked down the sidewalk all the way back to the salon. They were nice enough to re-wash him at no charge for which I was very grateful. They’ve earned my business from now on.

Looking back on the whole incident, now I think it's hysterical though, as I've said, at the time, I wasn't amused. I guess the moral of this story is that no matter how well behaved your guide dog may be, he’ll surprise you. Dobbs is crafty when it comes to things like this. He finds ways of following your commands, but does them in ways that while technically follow the letter of the law you’ve laid down; still allow him to do what he wants when you least expect it…

A SERIOUSLY CLOSE CALL…

It happened in a flash, without warning and came within a whisper of leaving Dobbs and I seriously injured and it wasn’t a traffic check.

Monday was a very hectic day and Dobbs was a real trooper. Somehow, I had appointments piled one upon another, back to back and without any breaks all day long. He must have walked nearly five miles before this incident happened and he had handled the entire day with his usual calm collected demeanor, never complaining, never loosing his focus or diligence. He was just enjoying spending the day on the road with me and I have to admit that I was really happy to have him along with me to keep me company in the midst of my hectic schedule.

It was the late afternoon around 5 o’clock and we were coming back from Hollywood where I had just had to return to my pharmacy to have them correct a mistake they had made earlier in the day when filling one of my prescriptions. It was hot, the bus was crowded and people were in an unusually crabby mood. An elderly lady had made everybody grumble because she had insisted that the bus driver extend the wheelchair ramp so that she could get onto the bus with her walker only to ride one block and then hold the whole bus up for 10 minutes while she got off again. She had made Dobbs and I get out of our seat at the front of the bus so she could get by us with her walker and she was rude about it. So needless to say the bus ride wasn’t going all that well to begin with but what happened next is unprecedented and I still can’t believe it happened.

As the elderly lady egresses the bus, a young man who had apparently been out getting drunk in the afternoon at a pub, got onto the bus. According to the bus driver he was so drunk that he couldn’t even get his dollar bill to go into the bus fare-collecting machine. She had waived him to just go and sit down because we would have been there all day waiting for him to pay his fare and the bus was already behind schedule due to traffic. The guy passed by Dobbs and I who was seated normally minding our own business. He nearly tripped and fell over my feet that I was using to protect Dobbs and keep people from stepping on him. He said “sorry,” and blundered on down the aisle deeper into the bus to find a seat. I could smell the alcohol on his breath he was so drunk. I was going to be glad when this bus ride was over.

The bus started up again and traveled for a minute or so when suddenly the driver had to slam the brakes to avoid smashing up a car that had cut the bus off in traffic. Everyone on the bus was thrown forward. Those of us who were seated weren’t too seriously jostled around and I had a good firm grip on Dobbs so he didn’t go flying off anywhere. However, the drunk guy who had just gotten onto the bus had apparently chosen to try to stand up rather than take a seat and he was thrown, through the air, from somewhere in the mid section of the bus all the way to the front of the bus slamming into the fare collection machine head first. As he flew past Dobbs and I, he brushed both of us with his body. Dobbs pressed himself up against me and I pushed myself back into the seat to try to avoid being injured but the truth is that by the time we had reacted to the situation it was already too late to avoid it. Had the man’s flight path been just a few inches more towards us he would have taken both of us out; potentially seriously injuring both Dobbs and myself.

Several people got up out of their seats and went to the man’s aid. He didn’t say anything. Frankly I’m amazed he wasn’t killed. The bus driver pulled over and rather than the man waiting around for help to arrive to check him out, he just fled the bus over the objections of the passengers and the driver.

Honestly, I consider myself lucky not to be in the hospital right now and not to have Dobbs lain up in the animal hospital with serious injuries or broken bones. This episode hasn’t put me off riding the bus. I really don’t have any other way to easily get around LA with my guide dog (given that Access Services can’t seem to figure out that I need a VAN and not a tiny car for transportation. But that’s another story) and so the bus is my only real option regardless of how I feel about it. I guess I should chalk the whole experience up to the idea that, hey, living in LA may be many things, but it’s never boring...

HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY...

One of the most common questions I'm asked about Dobbs is, "Does he ever get any time off from work?" "When he's at home, does he get to just be a dog sometimes?" "When the harness is off," I say, "he's just a dog and he loves to play like one." Dobbs' favorite playtime game is tug. Whether it's keep-away tug with his Kong or just good old fashioned pull-tug with his Tug Ring, Dobby is a relentless and crafty dog. I love playing with him because it brings him so much happiness. Being a Guide Dog is hard work and Dobbs deserves all the time off he can get.

The other game Dobbs loves to play is fetch. Now fetch, as a rule, is usually discouraged for a guide dog because it can cause obsessive behavior to develop in a dog. One day you'll be working down a street and a bird will fly by and bang! off the two of you go in hot pursuit. Fetching isn't a normal behavior for dogs, as hard as that may be to believe, but is rather a learned behavior. I didn't teach Dobbs to fetch, somebody earlier in his life (prior to living with me) taught him to retrieve but he's got such a diligent work ethic that his playtime fetching hasn't ever shown any sign of spilling over into his working life.

The one problem that I have with fetch is in throwing out his chosen toy to retrieve. He likes to fetch his Nylabone and tossing that across the apartment can be a bit of an act of faith; faith that I won't hit or break anything with it. Dobby can go on fetching for a good half an hour before he tires out. Sometimes his dad (me) tires out more quickly than that but I keep going because I know how much he loves it. When you're in guide dog school they tell you that you need to try to schedule at least fifteen minutes per day to play with your dog. If Dobby got anything less than an hour and a half to two hours of play per day I think he'd go into withdrawal. As I've said, I don't mind and he willingly stops playing when I tell him "that's enough" so it's never become an obsession with him.

One regret that I have is that I haven't been able to secure an outdoor enclosed paddock where I can take Dobbs from time to time to let him run around and really chase after his Kong. Since it isn't safe for me to take Dobby to a dog park, due to the risk of a dog attack or his inadvertently contracting an illness from another dog, this is the one aspect of my guide dog transitional plan which I haven't been able to fulfill since returning home from guide dog school earlier this year. But I'm still looking!

THE CURSE OF A HUNGRY LABRADOR…

As I've said many times before, Dobbs is a great guide dog. He’s smart, focused and really performs his job well. He rarely misses a curb or jumps the last step on a flight of stairs. He threads me through some of the most challenging situations without a hitch and almost never misses a beat, almost. Occasionally he has his moments where his halo slips a bit, when he’s hungry. When my Dobby is hungry, sometimes he can be a real handful. When he’s hungry, all he’s thinking about is getting home so he can get fed. He’s in such a hurry he practically drags me down the sidewalks. He occasionally doesn’t listen to my commands and his only interest is to expedite our excursion so he can get home.

Take today for example. I needed to go to the store this afternoon to pick up a few odds and ends. Now Dobbs’ normal feeding time is at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. Around 2:30 p.m. we headed out to Gelson’s Market, which is about a mile down Santa Monica Boulevard from my place. I used to have a grocery store that was closer but it recently closed for renovation and so Gelson’s is now really the only option that I have for grocery shopping within a reasonable walking distance. In a way it’s great because I get to work Dobbs on a longer and more challenging route and he really loves to get out of the house and work. Dobbs often prances down the street as if to say to the world, “Look at me! See how special I am. See what I get to do!” He can be a character sometimes. But I digress.

From the moment we headed out, Dobbs was in a hurry. He wanted to get to wherever we were going and that was that. At first I wasn’t sure what was up with him. It was a bit windy so I chalked it up to that and put it out of my mind. Our route began normally enough. We had the usual number of dog distractions along the boulevard, which he handled with his usual calm, collected demeanor. He stopped me for a few cars pulling across the sidewalk in front of us and we pulled over at his usual favorite piece of grass to relieve en-route. Everything seemed normal and that’s when the trouble began. We approached a somewhat unusual corner on Holloway and Santa Monica Blvd. Now I wanted to do what is called a “curb to curb” turn in order to reorient myself to cross Santa Monica Blvd. rather than proceeding forward across Holloway and down the same side of the street. After stopping me normally at the curb, I gave Dobbs a right command to execute the turn and rather than listening to what I had said and paying attention to my foot work, Dobby tried to go forward to take me across the street instead of doing the curb to curb I had requested. I immediately called out a “halt” command, commanded him to “heel” and put him in a sit and a down to get him re-focused. It didn’t work.

By this point it was nearly 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon and I began to realize that Dobbs must have been getting hungry early. I got him up from the down position, got him into the ready position and gave him another “right” command. Instead of going right he again tried to take me across the street. He was bound and determined to cross that street. This time I had to give him a collar correction and a “No!” You have to understand, Dobbs rarely if ever needs to be given a collar correction since he’s normally such a well behaved dog that it’s always a bit of a shock to him when it happens. I again put him into a sit and a down hoping that the second time would be the charm and he would calm down and re-focus on the task at hand. Again, I got him up after waiting for a minute or so, got him into the ready position and gave him another “right” command. This time he did execute the turn but he leaped forward dragging me along with him nearly pulling me off balance (And yes, I was in the correct ready position. That's what kept me from falling).

What I’ve noticed with Dobby is that when these episodes happen, the situation tends to snowball and the errors begin to mount one upon the other in succession because he's confused and is trying so hard to do what he thinks I want that he ends up making more mistakes. Dobby just wants to please me so much that he gets frustrated and when he does the wrong thing he overcompensates and tries to take the initiative to prove that he’s capable of handling my requests and that he's a good boy. Dobbs is a sensitive dog and sometimes can be a bit needy and these kinds of episodes are the darker side of that yin and yan of his personality. He so much wants to know that I still love him that he becomes fearful that he's lost that love and gets overwrought. The only way to overcome this vicious cycle is to stop him, put him into a sit and shower him with all the love he can handle and then move on as if nothing has happened. Did I mention that through all of this I had a bag of dog poop in my hand the entire time? That’s originally why I wanted to cross the street instead of heading forward in the direction we were originally traveling because I knew there was a trash-can on the opposite corner where I could drop off my little white plastic bag of joy.

Dobbs and I finally crossed Santa Monica Blvd. successfully, he found the trash can for me with his usual diligence and then, when all seemed like it was relatively back to normal, Dobby showed he had other ideas. He wanted to head back to home and tried to take me back across the street rather than proceeding on to Gelson’s when I gave him a forward command. His "independent streak" went on all the rest of the way to the market. Once there, he behaved himself while we were inside but he started up again once we were back on the road towards home.

I ended up doing two obedience routines with him en-route to try to help him get his focus. It didn’t work. I did some traveling "sits" and "downs" (where you stop every 10 feet or so and put the dog into a sit and a down for a few moments and then repeat it again 10 feet later) with him to try to get him to focus on listening to me. That sort of worked but the closer we got to home, the more he was bouncing off the walls (so to speak). He blew through a curb (which he almost never does) and rather than re-work the entire intersection with him I figured the best possible thing I could do was keep heading for home so he could get fed. If I had tried to re-work the error by re-working the entire intersection it would have been a huge struggle to get him to focus and it wouldn’t have helped him to not make the mistake again in the future because his mind was elsewhere. Sometimes, you've got to know when to cut your losses and at this point, my Dobby had a one tract mind, he simply couldn’t think about anything else but getting home for dinner. I’ve come to realize that one of the strongest forces in Dobbs’ life is his stomach. He doesn’t behave this way every time we’re late getting home for a meal but when he does, he can be a real handful. I still love him to death. As his trainer Holly was fond of saying, “Dobbs is a really well trained dog but he’s still a dog,” a point which Dobby occasionally reminds me of in spades…

THE SUPERIORITY OF A GUIDE CAT OVER A GUIDE DOG...

One hot summers day back in late July of this year (2008), Dobbs and I had been waiting for a bus on Sunset Boulevard for nearly an hour. Buses on Sunset often run at irregular intervals due to heavy traffic but this bus was particularly late in arriving. When the bus finally pulled up I could tell there was something weird going on. The driver didn’t open the door right away and left us standing in the hot sun for nearly a minute before he finally opened the door and let us board. The heat is really stressful on Dobbs and if I hadn’t needed to be out traveling that afternoon I wouldn’t have been. I wasn’t sure what to make of the delay but I was glad to get into the air conditioning for both my sake and for Dobbs’ and so I didn’t think much of it and put it out of my mind for the moment.

As I boarded, I waived my bus pass in the air for the driver to see, got to the top of the steps on the bus and called for Dobbs to follow me on board which he did. As Dobbs scrambled up the steps the Driver said, “There’s a seat behind me on the right and watch out for your dog, there’s a cat on the bus.” “Huh?” I said, “a cat?” “Yeah, right across from you,” he said with no further explanation. Just then a droll woman’s voice began speaking, “Oh, now this will be interesting.” She paused. “This will be a chance to do some teaching and learning.” I just ignored her and got to my seat and got Dobbs into his sitting position, between my legs, so that the Driver could proceed.

Dobbs was very interested in the cat across the aisle from us but I didn’t realize that the cat wasn’t in a kennel. “He’s a beautiful dog,” said the droll woman seated across from me. “Thank you,” I said, “He’s my best buddy.” “I see he’s attentive to my cat,” she said, “I have a guide cat with me over here and I can see that your dog is very interested in him. That’s good. That means he’s doing his job.” Now at this point I’m thinking out loud and inadvertently blurted out, “Guide cat?” “Yes,” she said, “I have a guide cat which is much superior to a guide dog in both training and temperament.” I pulled out my monocular and looked at the woman seated across from me. She was rather disheveled with wild brown curly hair and draped over her shoulder was a scrawny, white, shorthaired cat. The cat was just laying there letting her run her hands over it but it was defiantly eyeing Dobbs.

Now to be fair, I had heard about this woman from several bus drivers who had asked me some very pointed questions in the past about what constituted a legitimate service animal and whether or not I had ever heard of a service cat before but I never figured that I would actually cross paths with this person. Apparently, the MTA management was trying to figure out if they could deny this woman access to their buses as long as she had her cat with her. I had previously told the drivers that I simply didn’t know the answers to their questions but I had never heard of such a thing and didn’t believe that cats were trainable and therefore would unlikely be used as service animals for that reason.

At this point, I became concerned. There’s no such thing as a guide cat and so I knew that this woman was either working the system or more likely was a few bricks short of a full load (if you know what I mean). While I knew Dobbs wouldn’t get out of control or go after the cat, I had no idea as to what the cat on the woman’s shoulder would do. I was growing increasingly worried that if the cat sprang at Dobbs or attacked him in some other way, the woman would have no way of controlling her animal and Dobbs could be injured and/or refuse to work afterwards if attacked. Pets aren’t allowed to ride the bus unless they’re in a kennel because of health and safety concerns for the general public and for the safety of service animals like Dobbs. I also guessed that the reason the driver had not opened the door was likely because he wasn’t sure what was going to happen with my dog and this woman’s cat. As it turns out, my guess was close but more on that later.

I decided that I had no choice but to act. One of the things that become very apparent while you’re in guide dog school is that the welfare and safety of your guide dog is paramount. Ultimately, an individual person’s safety and well being depends upon your guide dog and anything that could erode or jeopardize the dog’s well being is by default jeopardizing a person’s personal safety. This woman was placing my dog in jeopardy and thus my safety in jeopardy, unintentionally perhaps, but her behavior was by definition reckless nonetheless.

I realized that directly confronting her and demanding that she leave the bus with her cat was beyond my authority and only the bus driver or the police could remove her from the bus so I took another tact, I began to barrage her with questions about her “guide cat’s” training. Questions that I knew she would be unable to answer because her cat had no training because there’s no such thing as a guide cat. My hope was that the bus driver would be listening and would hear enough to realize that this woman was lying to him in order to bring her pet cat with her on the bus.

I asked the woman which school she had attended to learn how to perform guide work with her cat? No answer. I asked her whether or not a cat used the same kinds of commands that a guide dog used. She reacted. “No, you need to read the ADA,” she said. “I’m allowed under the ADA to have my guide cat with me on public transportation. You need to learn about the ADA.” I said, "Madam, I’m blind. I know all about the ADA. I’m trying to find out how much training you’re guide cat has and who did the training.” “No, you’re not allowed to question me. You need to go to ADA.gov and read the rules about access for service animals,” she said. “I know all about the rules for access,” I said, “what I want to know is what proof you have that your cat is a legitimate service animal. I’m concerned that your untrained cat might attack my dog and harm him. For me this is a safety issue. I’m merely asking you questions which you should have no trouble answering.” All she could repeat was that I needed to go to ada.gov and look up the rules. By this point the driver had heard enough. Just as we pulled up to the stop on Sunset and Highland, the bus driver spoke up and told her that if she wouldn’t answer the questions I was asking then she could answer some questions he had for her about the legitimacy of her “guide cat.” Well, she suddenly realized the gig was up and said, “This is my stop anyway. Next time maybe you’ll all be aware of what ada.gov says and won’t be so ignorant of the rules and will be more considerate.”

She got off the bus (with her cat thank goodness) at which point everyone around me let out a collective sigh of relief. Apparently, she had been torturing people with her endless talking about her service cat prior to me getting on the bus. During the time that the driver had held me on the curb before opening the door, he had warned her that I had a dog and that she needed to keep control of her cat or he would put her off the bus. It seems that when I started questioning her, she had become extremely nervous, as I had hoped she would, but not because I was challenging her but because she knew that the bus driver was already suspicious of her cat.

To be honest with you, I don’t feel bad about doing what I did. My guide dog is the most important thing in my life and his well-being comes first above and beyond the feelings or desires of other people. I have a contract with Guide Dogs for the Blind which clearly states that I agree to advocate for the safety and well being of my guide dog should the need arise. The school retains ownership of the dog. Dobbs is merely on loan to me from the school. If I don’t live up to my end of the bargain, they can, at their discretion, remove Dobbs from my possession and reissue him to someone else in order to protect their investment in his raising and training. By trying to scam the system, this woman had forced me into a position where I was required to intervene for the well being of my dog. Clearly, she hadn’t though through what would happen if someone else got on the bus with a legitimate service animal. I haven’t seen the woman since that day nor have any bus drivers asked me about service cats. I can only hope that this means she is no longer trying to scam the system or has been permanently barred from riding the bus.

TRAFFIC CHECK...

Well, it’s happened again. Dobbs and I were cut off attempting to cross a major intersection. This time is was the corner of La Cienega and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. We were about two thirds of the way across the street when a car ran through the red light, crossed through the crosswalk in front of us cutting Dobbs and I off nearly hitting us before making a right turn and zooming off. I wish I could see well enough to read the license plate on the cars that do this to us. I’d like to report them. The one possible saving grace this time is that the intersection is equipped with an automatic traffic ticketing camera system and hopefully the person was caught on camera running the red light. Frankly, I’m amazed that the person didn’t have a serious accident. La Cienega and Wilshire is an extremely busy intersection 24 hours a day. I don’t know how many cars travel through there each day but it must be in the tens of thousands.

Dobbs handled the incursion with his usual diligence. He stopped me and backed me up a bit to keep me away from the car. Honestly, I don’t know how I survived traveling around Los Angeles when I was using my cane. Given the number of traffic checks Dobbs and I have had it’s a miracle that I wasn’t hit crossing major intersections before I had him to watch out for the crazies behind the wheel driving in this town.

These events are always stressful on both Dobbs and I. I’ve gotten more accustomed to the idea that these sorts of things are part of traveling when you’re visually impaired but nothing ever really prepares you for them. They're always startling and a shock to the system when they happen. Dobbs always seems really freaked out by these incursions at first and then settles down within a few minutes. I always stop once we’re in a safe place and give him a few dog food kibbles and a lot of love.

For about a week after the event, Dobbs tends to be over protective of me stopping to show me every crack in the sidewalk and obstacle in our path. If there’s a possibility that a car may get within ten yards of us he stops me. What I’ve found is that the best way to get him past this behavior is to be patient with him, encourage him and most of all keep him working. I think he’s handling the stress of these events better and better each time they happen and I'm always so proud of how he takes care of me when we're confronted with these kinds of challenges.

While we were together in Guide Dog School, we had a particularly close call working a route. The stress of that event caused Dobbs to throw up soon after we got back to the dormitory. Gratefully, he hasn’t done that since then. Each time we have a traffic check he seems to be taking it more and more in stride. I don’t blame the poor guy for being stressed out by LA drivers though; I know I am. He has a lot of responsibility watching out for inattentive and discourteous drivers and there are an awful lot of them in this city…

I'M WITH HIM...

Let’s get it all on the table up front; Dobbs is a rock star. He’s gentle, friendly, affectionate and diligent. He works incredibly hard, rarely makes a mistake and really watches out for my well-being wherever we go together and people notice.

Whether we’re on the bus, in the grocery store, at the mall, waiting in a reception area or just walking down the street, people actively go out of their way to engage with me about Dobbs. He’s a people magnet. I’ve lived in my current apartment for over seven years and until I got Dobbs, I had hardly met any of my neighbors. Now I know all of them. At times the attention he draws can be overwhelming. It’s always the same kinds of questions: How old is he? How long have the two of you been together? How much training has he had? Did you have to pay for him? and so on. It’s not that I mind answering people’s questions, because I don’t. Having a guide dog makes you an ambassador for the guide dog program and in a way you are always on display when you’re working your dog. It’s just that sometimes I begin to feel as if I’m Dobbs’ publicist fielding all of the inquiries from his adoring fans; and believe me; he has a lot of fans out there in the general public.

Don’t get me wrong; Dobbs is the best thing that ever happened to me. His presence in my life has made all the difference. I get out of my apartment a lot more. I’m not afraid to travel places because I know he’s with me. The likelihood that something bad will happen is infinitesimal. Not to mention that he’s also my best buddy and I adore him. I love it when I’m sitting on the sofa at home and he lies down next to me putting his head in my lap so I can stroke his ears. He lets out a big sigh of contentment that melts my heart. He also loves to play tug and fetch relentlessly but I don’t mind. I really enjoy all the time that I spend with him. The effort that properly caring for him takes is not a burden. After all, he takes such good care of me that he deserves nothing but the best. At this point, I can't imagine not having him in my life.

Maybe it’s the close bond between us that attracts all the attention from people. I’d like to think so. I’d like to think it’s more than the fact that Dobb’s is an amazing dog that attracts all the attention. But, at the end of the day that may be all it is. Perhaps it is Dobbs’ world and I just live in it. If that's the way it is, that's okay. Dobbs' world is a great place to live...