Years ago (maybe 13?) I was looking for a dog.  I never had a dog growing up and always wanted one.  (I also wanted to be a vet and maybe marry a farmer – one out of three isn’t bad right?)  The first dog my husband and I picked out from the SPCA ended up with the worst case of Parvo our vet in Christiansburg had ever seen.  He was a very sick puppy and after the parvo became mean as a snake.  We tried training lessons, individual lessons, exercise – diet changes.  You name it, we tried it.  I was determined to help this dog.  But when he viciously bit our neighbor we had to draw the line.  We did extensive research after that on dog breeds  – and decided we wanted a lab.   After looking around (and seeing some really sad situations) we met Roanoke Animal Hospital Vet Dr. Finkler.  His dog was having puppies for a service dog foundation called St. Francis in hopes that one or two would make it into the program.  The remaining puppies he was going to sell as a donation to the foundation.  Our top choice (named Basil by the Finklers) was not picked for the program because he didn’t pass the toe pinch test, so he became ours.  Years later I can tell you why he didn’t pass that test - it was because he was extremely laid back.  Oh how we loved this dog- he had the sweetest personality.  He turned out to be fantastic with all of our three kids and was one of their best friends.  He moved several times with us, went on vacation with us and protected us.  This is one of my favorite pictures of him with my son, taken during one of his final days this year.

I didn’t ask my son to pose that way – that is just how he always sat with Basil.  I can’t tell you how many times I would  be working on my computer and would look over to see them sitting like that.  But this isn’t supposed to be a sad post – we loved Basil and are very thankful to St. Francis and Dr. Finkler for the opportunity we were given to have him in our lives.  Through Basil we found St. Francis, which led us to our current dog.  But I’m getting ahead of myself . . .

About three years ago when we were living in Roanoke and Basil was still alive, I decided it was time for us to help St. Francis.  I didn’t have a lot of money to make a donation, so I looked on their website and found out people could help by becoming puppy sitters when the dogs in training needed to go to the vet.  These puppies had passed the initial test into St. Francis and were being trained by prisoners at the Bland County Correctional Facility.  I’ll tell you what - the prisoners do an excellent job training!  We started watching puppies almost every week – it was sort of like Christmas for the kids.  This was when we met our current dog “LV.”    He was in the program as a puppy (he is a chocolate lab) and we got to watch him for an entire week when he was 12 weeks and again when he was three months (so he could get his shots).  He was such a sweet puppy and so easy going!  After meeting him, our neighbors across the street loved him so much they even went out and bought their own chocolate lab!  At his three month check up they took him out of the program for a potentially serious heart murmur.  St. Francis has a waiting list of people who want to adopt service dogs that need to come out of the program, but since we had already watched “LV” twice, we were given the choice to bring him home – which we did.  We had no idea how serious a heart murmur problem could be.

I took LV to the awesome vet clinic at Virginia Tech to find out exactly what was going on with him.  Sadly they found him to have an extremely serious heart condition called tricuspid valve dysplasia.  Basically, the blood flows in his heart and back out the same valve, instead of flowing through the heart.  The cardiologist at Tech said he could live two or three years – five would be a miracle.  They just didn’t know but they said at  some point he will go into cardiac arrest.   That was a very sad day for us.  He also can’t really exercise and has to watch his diet.   

Well, “LV” is two now and still going strong.  He is the smartest dog I have ever met and knows many commands.  He routinely greets my customers at the door and is thrilled when they pet him.  He brings joy to our lives daily.  The best thing about him is that he doesn’t know he is sick.  He’s just happy go lucky, super waggy and still very much a *large* puppy.  We are SO, so thankful to St. Francis for bringing such wonderful dogs into our lives.   Hopefully “LV” will make it to five or even eight years old and defy the odds. 

Click  here  to check out the absolutely fantastic St. Francis Service Dog Foundation, and below some of my favorite pictures taken today of “LV.”