Mobility Service Dog Harness

As most of you know I have a mobility service dog name Reilly. He is a 3-year-old golden retriever that I have had since December of 2014. Service dogs are not required to wear any kind of gear stating that they are service dogs, but many handlers choose to mark their service dogs as such in some way because it causes less questions, fewer accesses issues, and makes life easier. I have always chosen to have Reilly marked in some way for these reasons.

I have always used a vest for Reilly in order to identify him as a service dog, but I chose to get a mobility harness for him so that he can provide more support for me. I got his harness from DD Photo and Design who sells on Facebook. The woman who runs the site and makes the harnesses is named Amanda and she has fantastic customer service! She offers many different options and colors, so there is something to fit everyone’s needs!

I am going to take a quick moment to put a disclaimer out there! These numbers are not concrete and ultimately you and your vet should decide if you dog is large enough, healthy enough, and old enough to do mobility work, but these numbers are a rough estimate to go by. A dog who is expected to do light mobility work, such as counter balance and momentum pulling, needs to be at MINIMUM 30% of you weight and 30% of your height (at the shoulders). For heavy mobility work, such as bracing, your dog should be at MINIMUM 50% of your weight and 40% of your height. This would mean if you weigh 150 pounds and are 5 foot 6 inches tall your dog should be at least 75 pounds and be 26.5 inches tall to the the shoulder. That being said I would not use a small dog for mobility work even if you do weigh only 100 pounds! Additionally, your dog needs to be cleared by a vet to do mobility work and is not normally physically ready for mobility work until around their second birthday.

That being said Reilly is tall enough, old enough, and weighs enough to do heavy mobility work for me. This harness will allow him to do more momentum pulling and be more comfortable while doing his job. 

Here is what Reilly's new harness looks like on him. 

 

And here are a couple of photos of the harness off of him.

 

There are numerous features that you can choose from on these harnesses. First, his harness has a Y-front which provides more stability and greater comfort for him as it distributes the weight better than a straight front harness does. I also chose to get a detachable handle. The handle is fed through a couple of rings and clips onto the harness itself. This allows me to remove the handle if he needs to fit  into a tight space, if he will be laying down for an extended period of time, or if I am using my wheelchair and won't needing the handle for a while. It is just convent to have the option to remove the handle if I want to.  I also chose to get a padded handle. The handle has handle, and all of the harness actually, is lined with teal fleece. This just makes the handle all the more comfortable! The next upgrade I made was to have a double buckle put on. This means that I don't have to try to have him step into one side and pull on the other. It has buckles on either side, which means that I just put the front piece between his legs and buckle it on either side of his belly. The harness does have velcro on these straps as well to adjust them. 

The final upgrade I decided to make was cosmetic. I chose to have SERVICE DOG embroidered on either side of the harness itself. This is just one more way to make sure that people know he is a service dog and hopefully prevent people from coming up and trying to pet him! I also chose the teal color, but Amanda has a bunch of colors to choose from! I thought the teal looked nice on him though!

I chose to get a cape that snaps onto the back of his harness. The cape has zippered pockets which is incredibly useful to store things in! The red patches on either side of the cape say "Mobility Service Dog" and above that it says "DO NOT PET". On the top of the cape There is a large black patch that says "Not all disabilities are visible" along with a small "DO NOT PET" patch. I really wanted the not all disabilities are visible patch because I am constantly questioned as to why I have a service dog since I do not visibly have a disability and people always think that I am training him because, again, I don't look disabled. On the handle of the harness itself I have two patches Velcroed together that have stop signs on them and say "Service Dog Do Not Pet". I wanted to have something on the harness itself that said do not pet so that if I chose not to put the cape on him that message was still clearly displayed. All of his patches came from an Etsy shop called DannyLuannEmbroidery and the woman who made the harness sewed the patches onto the cape for me!

This harness was definitely an investment, but will last Reilly the rest of his working career and I may be able to use it on my next service dog if he/she is of a similar size to Reilly and since it is adjustable there is a degree of flexibility to the sizing of the harness. The harness itself was $90 with all of the upgrades, the cape was $30, and all of the patches were $50. Like I said it was an investment, but one that will be well worth it! If you are looking for a mobility harness I would definitely recommend you check out DD Photo and Design on Facebook!

Botox Injection for Gastroperesis

I was able to get my botox injection done today to see if it helps my gastroparesis. The botox is injected into the pylorus muscle, which is the muscle that acts as a valve to let food out of the stomach into the intestines. The goal is that by injecting the botox into this muscle it relaxes and allows the food to pass faster through my stomach. This will hopefully mean that  I will have less nausea, abdominal pain, and feeling full very quickly. We will not know if this worked for another few days because there is swelling of the muscle from the injections before it ultimately relaxes.

This procedure is done through a scope. The scope is passed through your mouth, down your throat, and into you stomach. The needle is then passed through your stomach into the pylorus muscle. Thankfully this procedure is able to be done under twilight sedation, so you continue breathing on your own and do not need a breathing tube. There are virtually no risk to this procedure, so that was very reassuring!

The procedure went very well and I only had a bit of low blood pressure, which is completely normal for me! I have been able to eat a small meal and am feeling pretty good! My stomach is sore on the left hand side, which is where they did the injection. I am going to take some anti-inflammatory medication (a prescription that is similar to Aleve) to help decrease the swelling a little bit because as the night goes I am becoming more and more sore.

Like I said we will know in a few days if this procedure worked and if it does I will be contacting Cleveland Clinic to hopefully procedure with surgery to permanently open the pylorus muscle up since the botox is only a temporary solution (it last about 6-12 weeks typically). They also took some biopsies from my stomach to test for another condition, so I will get the results back from that by the end of the week and provide more information on that!

My hip surgery is still set for next Tuesday (5/17), so I am excited for that so that I can get my hip feeling better again!