A man’s love for his Chesapeake retriever helped him overcome some of the difficulties high-level quadriplegia presents.
By Laird A. Doctor
My adventure started long before my injury, when I received a lovable eight-week-old Chesapeake retriever I named Max.
My very best friend of the human variety had many well-trained retrievers. His superb bird shooting skills won him many prestigious field trials, including national championships. In the field he would often look down to see the intelligent and quizzical eyes of his lab clearly saying, “Hey, dummy! If you don’t shoot it, I can’t go get it!” I, therefore, had some understanding of what well bred and trained retrievers could do.
After receiving my puppy, I immediately called my friend for advice. He did some checking and came up with a few professional trainers in my area. The one I selected was well known and had more than 20 years of experience. I told him that I wanted to be personally involved in the training of the dog, and he liked that. He felt it was time for him to try and spread the knowledge to others rather than just receiving other people’s dogs to train and ship back out.
I spent many wonderful days working and learning along with Max. I became completely enamored with the whole process of training these wonderful dogs. After Max was done with his basic schooling, we were all pretty proud of him and his abilities. I continued to train him for another year, usually twice a day, seven days a week.
I entered him in a local Hunt Test and he was very impressive. All of the judges that had seen him run were sure that he would easily qualify for the National Hunt Test and be able to pass. My grand plan was to purchase a travel trailer and go to relatively close-by Hunt Tests and get him qualified. If he was lucky enough to get titled, I was going to breed him and start training some puppies myself.
I was at the time director and chief pilot of a relatively large private collection of military aircraft. This was a job that I thought I could only dream about. I lived on about seven and half acres with a nice pond that worked pretty well for training dogs. There were many acres of open land and lakes not far from my home for additional training sites. During the spring and summer I spent most of my weekends flying various aircraft to air shows. How could my life be better?
Upside Down
Then I learned a major lesson of life. In a matter of just seconds my “perfect” life was turned upside down. I found myself a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down and with limited neck mobility. What was I going to do? Worse even, what could I do?
It took a long time to physically overcome the various surgeries. It took a much longer time to overcome the mental problems associated with such a change to life. These things were only accomplished by gaining an inner strength that did not emanate from me. But that is another story.
Before my injury I had seen many people with this type of injury just sitting and staring out the window or at a television all day. For me, this would just not do! I had to get my mind in gear and find a suitable solution to the problem. I found that working on all of the difficulties my injury presented me gave me more energy and my mind started to function as before. No longer was I just sitting in the wheelchair. I began to see that my life now had worth and there were things I could accomplish. Even if the effort turned out fruitless, there was worth just in the effort.
I truly worried about my faithful friend Max. How was I going to be faithful to him in my new condition when all he wanted to do was to retrieve?
Problems and Solutions
As I saw it, there were three major obstacles I would need to overcome to handle my dog: Giving hand signals so as to direct the dog, blowing a whistle, and pushing the buttons on the transmitter to use his collar while training.
I thought of all kinds of mechanical devices that would take the place of hand signals, but these would take a great deal of engineering and cost. I found the best solution was to train a friend to stand directly behind the wheelchair and give the signals as I directed. Teaching someone with no retriever experience proved difficult. There are so many nuances in giving the signals that I just could not communicate. I would therefore have to rely on just the basic signals in hopes that Max’s formal training would see him through. This turned out to be reasonably acceptable.
Now how was I going to blow a whistle with my diminished lung capacity and press the buttons so as to utilize his collar when training? These are the kinds of simple and routine tasks one normally takes for granted when training a dog. With my type of injury one quickly finds out that nothing in life should ever be taken for granted.
Technical Know-How
Blowing the whistle turned out to be not too difficult. I fortunately had been an experienced scuba diver and had a good knowledge of the air supplies available. I purchased the size bottle I thought would work and a standard controllable air supply valve. Now how to control the air from the bottle which would work in place of my lungs? A little online surfing allowed me to locate a relatively inexpensive electric-operated solenoid on/off air switch. I collected some air hose, a mouthpiece from one of the many machines needed for my life-support, and a little tape, and I had the main parts. All I had to do was mount this equipment and control it.
I went to a durable medical equipment company and described what I was looking for and found that they had already solved the problem. This came in the form of mounting a five-channel chin switch to my wheelchair.
I hoped that this switch would also allow me to operate the transmitter unit used for the dog collar. The transmitter turned out to be fairly easy to modify. There were three buttons that when pressed mechanically made an electrical contact. Bypassing these buttons, we could supply the current required utilizing three of the channels available on the chin switch. There is one good thing about having a power wheelchair: plenty of available electrical power from that big battery source. Hanging the transmitter took a short trip to the local hardware store for some PVC. With a little adaptation we had a perfect hanging container.
Mounting the air bottle also turned out to be not too difficult. During this trip to the hardware store I remembered that household fire extinguishers had various types of mounting brackets. We found one that worked perfectly for hanging the bottle to the side of the chair. We ran a pressure hose from the air pressure solenoid to the whistle. A little Velcro affixed the whistle to the bottom of the left arm pad. We made an adapter out of one of the mouth pieces from a breathing machine I have to use several times a day. A little tape managed to hold these parts together without any air leak. A few trial runs showed that the best output pressure setting was 40 pounds per square inch (psi). There it was, the completed system for me to continue to have a few of those precious loving moments with my best friend Max.
Many years have now transpired. I consider the effort I put into my time with Max gave me a good return. Not only did it put purpose back in my life, it continued to give purpose to my dog’s life. I have continued to come up with ways to do things that are a bit out of the norm for person with high-level quadriplegia. If I can accomplish these things, which help to keep my mind and body fit, anybody can! There is no question that there are limitations in the quadriplegic’s life. Come to think of it, aren’t all people somewhat limited? As for Max? Well, he is still just as eager and intense, albeit slower, at 13 years old.
Laird A. Doctor is a retired pilot and dog trainer who lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
