My Journey
Life flows like water. As did the events leading up to the formation of this charity and as it grows, I expected to meander like water. Always in a positive direction though and the trick is finding someone to help while also being a good steward to the memory of my service dog Harley Rose and how she helped me, as well as others. I learned how important it is to consider a Furr-ever friend as an option to prevent suicide, to aid and social isolation of people with PTSD and depression, and to find creative ways to not only save the person, but have the person saved the dog. I work with other charities to try, if at all possible, to find animals that wouldn’t otherwise have in a home or a person.
Personally, I’m not a highly educated person and I suffered a traumatic brain injury so I need all the help I can get to pursue my passion of helping people like me that may have a TBI or PTSD. I have PTSD from living in an abusive foster home near Gary, Indiana where I formed an alliance with the Vietnam Veterans that came there shell shocked and discharged who paid $20/month for rooms in the house. They helped me learn to improvise, adapt and overcome my problems. I needed to protect my sweet foster mom from a violent alcoholic. I had dogs at the time and I had to be hyper vigilant that they didn’t get poisoned by my foster dad. Which, unfortunately, did happened one day when he pretended to be nice to me and kept me away from home all day. This conduct was highly out of character for him, and it was a very good feeling like things were changing until I came home and found my dog had been poisoned. Well, things all came to a head when I was 13 and I wound up homeless scavenging for food, jumping trains, staying out of sigh, sleeping in junkyards with dogs. Sadly, I later found out that my dogs from my home were all euthanize at the Humane Society where my sister worked.
These experiences have led me to where I am. I couldn’t do anything back then. I couldn’t do anything for a lot of friends that I’ve seen give up and check out of life BUT I CAN NOW FROM THIS POINT ON by applying my experiences to help prevent people from going through a horrible path in life when they could save a dog and save themselves. If you have a relationship with your service dog, everything can fall apart all around you, but you will still have each other. Both willing to do for the other what you wouldn’t be willing to do for yourself.
My Story
In 1962, my biological mother dropped me off on her way home from the hospital at a run down property between Chicago and Gary. This is where I started out life being exposed to drinking, violence and abuse of both myself and my foster mom. This difficult background and grow up is what led me to I aligned with dogs and the shellshocked vets that also shared the property. I learned to improvise, adapt and overcome any situation with their help and the help of my foster mom. My foster mom was a very sweet lady and read me Bible stories every night.
Even then, I knew there was gonna come a day that I could share my experiences and put a positive spin on things and help others. There were times in my life, I was ready to give up. One of those times was when I got my first service dog Harley Rose Motorcycle Dog it’s a long, interesting story, but she basically saved my life and turned my life around.
Rosie took me on such an incredible journey. It doesn’t even seem real are possible. I didn’t know if I would survive her passing but she left me her grandson, Authur, who shares her passion for riding motorcycle and doing extraordinary things for others that keep me on task in life and make me want to share the magic, the passion and the lifesaving effect that service dogs can have and finding those people (and service dogs) who also need saving.
