 It's International Assistance Dog Week. Let's learn more about my service dogs at the NRC. I've had a service dog next to me since 1997. The first dog was Jelly Bean. We called him JB. Later came Memphis. He started working with me in 2005. He was named Memphis because his dad was Elvis. Then in 2015, Indy came into my life. And he's been with me at the NRC ever since then. And unfortunately, he's getting a bit older. So, Porthos will be taking over soon. Sometime next year. So, Porthos is being trained to be a service dog. There are certain standards that he has to meet. He has to have a certain number of hours. It's like 2,000 hours that he has to have a training. So, that's a lot of work that has to go into this dog. He doesn't know anything about being a pet or anything like that. He is trained from the very beginning to be a service dog. And so, every game, everything that we do is all designed to teach him skills, problem solving, and how to perform in public. Porthos is being trained to push a button with his paw or his nose so that he can open automatic doors. He's also learning how to pick up anything I drop, including keys or a badge. He's been learning to hold a stick in his mouth so they won't drop it. So, whenever he picks something up, he can hold onto it and bring it to me. Indy's going to demonstrate now what that looks like when all the foundational training is finished. This is my third time I've decided to choose my own dog to train. So, in choosing a puppy, once I found a very high quality breeder who was willing to work with me, I wanted to see the dog when the dog was young. So, I met Porthos when he was five weeks old. I tested three different puppies. One came up to me right away, was wonderful, then he ran off and I never saw him again. Porthos came up, was just loving everything, just so sweet, crawled under my wheelchair, laid down, was enjoying himself. When I came back two weeks later, fortunately, Porthos was the dog left and he immediately ran up to me and loved on me. He turned around and he sat and he looked up at me just like he looks up at me now. As soon as he was four months old, had all of his shots and was able to go out in public, he was in some type of service dog arms. Once he's a service dog, he will not be allowed to be petted by anyone unless I allow it. And the reason for that is because the reward for working is me petting him. Also, petting or making kissy sounds or distracting him in any way takes away from his job. And if he's doing something that would put me in danger, like falling or something like that, then obviously that's why he needs to be focused. So whenever you see a service dog working in public, it's really important, though it is very, very difficult, important that you just ignore them to the best of your ability. Certainly you can ask the person about the dog or whatever, but it's best just to try and ignore the dog so that the dog can continue to do his work. I expect that in the next nine months to 12 months that he'll be ready to work. Coming to work, putting on the harness, not being petted, being focused, all of that takes a lot of self-control on the dog's part. And so it's very important, I think, not to rush that process. I'll start bringing him in on quiet days, see how he does, and we'll start testing that where I'll bring in, if I were here five days, I would bring Indy two days or three days and vice versa, so I would switch off with dogs. So there'll be some transition. He'll fail, make mistakes. We expect that. We expect he'll embarrass me at some moment. So the American Disabilities Act, both in 1990 and 2010, really brought around a bunch of changes. They also redefined the service dog in 2010 and to recognize other types of animals that could be of service, but they also put certain restrictions on those animals. That's made a huge difference. And so access rights means that I can bring my dog anywhere with me, except your home. If you don't want me to bring my dog to your home, you have that right to say no. When I travel on an airplane, dog will go right with me and lay at my feet. My dog, he can do a transfer, which is a big part of helping me on and off an airplane especially. There's no grab bars anywhere, so my dog acts as a grab bar. Not everybody is comfortable with a dog. Some people are fearful, so at work I have to respect that as well. There's so much benefit obviously to me. It's a very selfish thing that I do, bringing my dog with me and having this thing help me. The benefits of bringing a dog to the office of all the people around, even if they don't touch him, is that they get that sense of home that I bring with me. They respect him on a bad day. It can just make somebody smile. That's really nice. The letters I've gotten when my dogs have either passed away or retired would just break your heart about people telling you what my dog meant to them. When I first got a dog, I was very worried about how that would affect my career, how would it affect the people around me. And it wasn't easy at first. It was a big adjustment. But when my friend said, Trish, you have really become a totally different person. Before you didn't look up, you didn't smile at people. And now you engage and you are probably your true self. And that's what my dog has brought out to me. And so I'm grateful every day to be able to have him with me to help me with those tasks so that I don't have to ask other people for help. That's really important to me to maintain my independence. And I found a level of independence that I didn't think I could ever find.