Dr Kelly Fleming

Dayton, my loving service dog went on to a better place on November 17, 2023.

He gave everything to me. His unconditional love and his joy as a service dog for 11 years. He was 13 years old when he laid his head down on my lap for the last time and his soul soared on.

A service dog is not a pet. He was my arms, my legs, my ears and my eyes. He was by my side every moment of every day.

The last seven years of his life, he fought a great fight against Addison’s Disease but ultimately, like my previous two service dogs, Addison’s won the fight.

He gave hundreds of people joy over his 13 years here on earth and unwavering loyalty and love to me.

One of the things I’ve advocated for over the past 21 years is helping others understand what service dogs do and why they are not pets.

Dayton as well as Cooper and Emmett were trained since they were 8 weeks old.

The first year they spend time with special foster families who teach them the basics of puppy training but also took them to stores, doctor appointments, hospitals, restaurants, libraries and any other public location you can imagine to learn how to behave in those settings.

They learn how to use the bus, the subway, taxis and sometimes airplanes since their future handler and parent may require to travel using those modes of transportation.

After that first year, they go to dog guide school where they learn the skills to help their future human handler. About 6 to 8 months later they graduate from school and they are matched with their human.

Dayton and my other boys were trained to picked things up from the floor, even a tiny paperclip, a pen or an envelope. They were trained to open and close doors. To open drawers and get my clothes. They were trained to help me get dressed and to dry me off after a bath with a towel.

They were trained to hear for me and let me know when someone was near or at the door.

They helped me know where the sidewalk was when we were walking and helped me safely cross the street.

They were trained to get things off the shelves at stores or pick things up that I dropped.

They would go to the ER with me and be on the gurney with me to keep me calm when I had an emergency. They laid on my lap at the dentist to keep my legs on the chair.

All my boys have been Standard Poodles because I’m allergic to dogs.

Standard Poodles come with “Poodletude”, “Poodle-time”, and “Poodle logic”.

Standard Poodles are well known for their attitudes. Unlike labs for example, if you ask a poodle to pick something up, he has to think about it first, decide if he’s going to do it, then decide how he’s going to do it and then gives it some more thought and ultimately hands you whatever it was you asked for – in his own time. Hence Poodle time.

Poodle logic means they know they are smarter than their human and I have to give all my boys credit for figuring out how to do things better than the way they were trained at school or extra things I trained them in.

When I had Cooper, he would get my keys for me and hand them to me. Nine times out of ten, I’d inevitably drop them. One day, I was waiting for him to hand them to me and he didn’t. Finally I put my hands on my lap and he climbed up on the footrest of my chair and dropped them in my hands. He stood there for a minute to make sure I wasn’t going to drop them and then got down and waited for me to put his collar on. Poodle logic – they are smarter than me!

I miss Dayton so much. Even though I’m Deaf, the house is so quiet. It’s so hard to sleep alone after having a 2.5 foot poodle stretching out on my double bed and leaving me a specific spot to sleep in. 😊

All the boys were trained to roll me over in bed but they didn’t always wait for me to ask them. They just ended up rolling me whenever they felt like it.

The past few days have been hard. No one to move me out of his space that he wanted to sleep in. Everything so quiet.

Please remember when you meet someone with a service dog, don’t approach the dog no matter how cute they are. They are working and their full attention must be with their human. If they are distracted it could cause injury to their human.

If we are not in a rush or occupied, we are happy to answer your questions about service dogs. Just please remember to ignore the dog.

Service dogs are “people dogs”. They like attention and there is a time when that is appropriate.

No worries, they always have play time and relaxing time every day but the minute their human moves, they are on alert.

In loving memory of my beautiful boy.