Good question. I hope
soon. I am trying not to rush into
things, though. Sometimes I get excited
about an idea and I want to do it now,
right now. But some things work out
better if you do some planning and preparation first.
I am hoping to start searching for a suitable dog in a
couple months. In the meantime, I am
continuing to do some research and learn as much as I can about living with a
service dog and just about dogs in general.
I’ve always been a cat person. We
had a dog when I was a kid but I didn’t really pay that much attention to
it. I know next to nothing about
dogs. Or I did, when I first started
looking into the possibility of getting a service dog. I know a lot more now, but still have a lot
to learn.
I’m also starting to save some money to cover the costs of
my service dog. I have a storage unit
filled with stuff, most of it from my old apartment when I used to live in
another city. When I moved in with Mike,
he already had furniture and other household stuff, so a lot of my things went
into the storage unit. That stuff has
been in there for eight years now. I’m
thinking, if I haven’t used it in eight years, I probably don’t really need it,
right? So my plan is to clean out the
storage unit, sell some of the stuff on Craig’s List if I can, and use that
money to cover the adoption fee for my dog.
Plus, if I empty out the storage unit, I won’t have to pay the monthly
fee for it anymore and that amount is about half of the estimated monthly cost
of feeding and caring for a dog. So
taking care of my storage unit and the stuff in it is an important part of my
plan to be able to afford a service dog.
In addition to learning about dogs and saving money, I’ve
been looking for a trainer. I think I’ve
found one but I have a couple other people to call. I guess I should check out all my options so I
can make sure I’m making the best choice.
I really like the woman I think I’m going to go with, though. Her name is Becky. She has a little experience training service
dogs, not a lot, but a lot of experience training dogs in general. She asked really good questions when I talked
to her so she could get a good idea of what I would need from her and she was
easy to talk to. She’s willing to meet
with me and my therapist to discuss the specific tasks I need a dog to
perform. She’s also willing to help me
select a dog.
I’m hoping to start looking for a dog in a couple
months. I don’t know how long it will
take to find one. I want to get a dog
from a rescue group, and plan to contact both a golden retriever rescue and a Labrador
retriever rescue near me. There’s no
guarantee either will have a suitable dog at that time, though. I might have to wait a while or check with
other groups until I find the right match for me. Picking out the right dog may be the most
difficult part of training a service dog and I don’t want to pick out the wrong
one just because I’m impatient.
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