I just thought I’d let you know (since I’m up so late letting Lily out) that we were presented with our "Special Needs Helper Dog" today.  She is just 8 weeks old and we have a great deal of work ahead of us but she will most certainly be worth it.

For those of you who haven’t heard, an organization called The North Star Foundation gave us a dog that is in the process of being trained to sense when an adrenal crisis may be forthcoming.  This will give us plenty of time to get him to a safe place and/or give him the shot thereby avoiding some of the trauma that comes along with it.

This will be an interesting undertaking for the whole family as we muttle our way through all the commands and rewards that are necessary to have Lily perform as an alert dog as she should.  When all is said and done, Lily should be able to give us an early warning (or alert) to Ryan having an adrenal crisis, or when he is going into hypervolimic (sp?).  The added benefit that we most recently learned was that she can have her already keen senses enhanced so that she can tell even when he is not feeling just quite right.  

I think I speak for my whole family when I say - If all she does is lick our faces and softly breath puppy breath on our faces, we will be just as happy and ahead of the game.

We feel very lucky to have her join our family and will keep you posted as to how her training as an alert dog works in conjunction with CAH.

We are so excited!!!!!

Please say a prayer for us.