This is Zorro, and he is a Very Good Boy.
"All dogs are very good boys / girls / dogs," I hear you say.
Perhaps, but let me explain why Zorro is an ESPECIALLY good boy.
I have a genetic disorder called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which affects my body's production of collagen (the 'glue' that holds everything together). As collagen is found in every joint, every organ and every tissue in the body, having faulty collagen basically means that I'm falling apart on the inside (yippee). My EDS mainly affects my mobility, my joints and my heart. It's especially pants because it's incurable, and it's taking my mobility a lot faster than I'd like. I have a very fast and irregular heart rate, which causes horrific brain fog when it gets bad and sometimes even causes me to black out. My joints are very wobbly and often slip out of place, so I fall over a lot. To top it all, my skin is translucent and very fragile, meaning that I bruise like a peach, bleed easily and take a long time to heal- not great for someone who falls over a lot. I'm an absolute walking disaster zone.
And that's where Zorro comes in.
Zorro is training to be an assistance dog. He's learning to help me with things that I find difficult, including:
Helping me to stand up
Picking things up when I drop them
Bringing me my mobility aids on command
Helping me to steady myself if one of my joints suddenly wobbles
Alerting people when I need help
Pressing buttons (on bad days even pressing a lift button can dislocate my fingers)
Stopping other dogs from jumping on me and knocking me over
Alerting me when my heart rate spikes so that I have advance warning to take my medication
There's probably a whole host of other things Zorro will eventually end up helping me with, things I haven't even thought of yet, but whatever the future holds for me I have a wonderful trainer from Paws for Support who will teach Zorro to do everything he can to make it easier for me.
Zorro is loving all of this. He is very intelligent and really enjoys learning, and of course he thinks it's great that he can come around with me. He takes his job VERY seriously- no adventure with him is ever dull.
I know a lot of his fans (and he has more than I do, I'm sure) have been begging me to do this for a while now, so I'll be using this blog to record Zorro's journey from mad hairy nitwit to fully-qualified Superdog. I'll try to update it as often as possible so that you can share in all of the fun and madness!
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