Basil the Wonder Dane
Basil is my Great Dane. He was given to me by the service dog organization I used to work for. Near the end of my time working for them, I hit a point that I had just become too sick to continue working for them as a finish trainer and struggling to keep up with my responsibilities as VP of Training. Around that same time a breeder donated 4 Great Dane puppies to the company. The CEO was very understanding of the situation I was in and knew that a Great Dane was one of my dream dogs. She called me up and offered me one of the puppies for me to train as my own personal service dog and as a way to thank me for everything I had done for the company. I decided to stick with the company tradition of naming all of their dogs after Disney characters and named Basil after my favorite one from the Great Mouse Detective.
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Basil worked with me as my service dog for about 3 years before I retired him. We went on so many fun adventures together; working at comic con, going to the International Jugglers Convention, and even taking a trip to Disneyland! He was such a life saver so many times and helped me more than anyone will ever know. I am so grateful for the time I got to spend with him as a service dog team. He really helped me polish my skills as a service dog trainers. I learned so much getting to work with him.
Once I was able to get my health issues back under control I decided to retire him. If you would like to learn more about Basil's retirement story you can check out my blog post Retiring My Service Dog.
Basil is thoroughly enjoying his retirement as a lazy, happy pet. He still occasionally comes and helps me out with training session, but only if we are working in a pet friendly place. If you do some training with me, chances are you'll get to meet him at some point.
I absolutely love my big, doofy, lazy boy! He is a big, stubborn butt head, but he always keeps things entertaining. After having him, I don't think I'll ever be able to survive without a Dane in my life.
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