“-I still don’t get why he trough it was a good idea to get this thing, how does he call it again?
-An assistance dog.” Marc answered Jake while looking from the mirror in the direction of the fluffy little, well ratter pretty big, creature siting in their living room.
Today was the day she was supposed to come home so Layla and Steven left early this morning to go pick her up at the airport coming from a service dog school in the US who train shelter dog for the specialise needs of their future handler, their speciality are animals trained to help people with multiple disability, invisible or not.
“-What is it even supposed to assist us for? Am pretty sure this thing can’t fight anything anyway, well maybe it can but still...
-She’s not supposed to fight, Jake, she’s supposed to help us in life and make it less miserable I guess...
-She?
-Yep, her name is Anubis
-Definitely Steven’s idea
-Yeah, but it was actually Linda idea to get a service dog, she talked about it to Layla, Layla talked about it to Steven and they both talked about it to me.” Linda was their doctor, well their therapist, a good one, and she really had to be a saint because she was dealing with the three of them weakly, and yet she still looked like she was happy to see all of them every time, or maybe she is just faking it and “prescribed” a service dog just so she wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore... That’s not how it works Marc, you still need to see her even with the service dog. Was what said Layla when he was expressing his first doubt about it.
Marc was pretty unsure about it at first, since he didn’t really know what a service dog was, but after a lot of talking he figured out that it was a pretty good idea. And if it wasn’t working for him, then it would probably at least work for Steven. And after even more talking and research and talking with Anubis trainer he was actually really excited, probably not as much a Steven but still.
“-Hum... And what does the pero help with?
-Am not quite sure of them all by heart, and she can learn to do more, but mostly, dissociation, sensory overload/meltdown/breakdown and anxiety attack I think, Steven made a list if you want to take a look, it’s on the aquarium.” Or in other word she will help them with their autism, DID, PTSD and mostly Steven’s anxiety as well as a couple of other problems.
That’s what Jake did, he looked over to Gus's tank to see a paper sheet that seems to have been carefully removed from a notebook taped next to some of the old postcard from their “mom” aka Marc, it was something they needed to talk about, Jake didn’t really care since he never really looked at it but when he did, he wasn’t feeling the best. However, Marc, even if he was the one who wrote them, was really triggered by them. But apparently Steven needed some more time before being able to take them off...
For Jake or Marc (or anyone who is wondering)
or just as a reminder
Task Anubis is trained to do:
DPT, self-harm behavior interruption,
Prevent panic attack, light guide work,
Crowd controlling, help grounding,
Retrieving object, stopping dissociative episode
Body block a dissociated handler from going through doors
Alert handler to episodes of rage or strong emotion
(Ones that still needs training/or other tasks that
we are looking forward to train her to do)
wake handler up and/or turn on light during nightmare
Non-aggressively search house for intruders
(would help for Marc paranoia)
Close door to block noise (in case of sensitivity to noise)
Front, side and back block (almost done training)
Guiding handler to their emergency person (Layla),
Get help
(Maybe other)
Steven :)
“-Damn, that’s... a lot... I don’t understand half of what those mean but for the other ones, I guess they make sense, but isn’t it like too much for a dog? They tried to explain everything to Jake, but he really didn’t much attention to it before and mostly didn’t even bother to listen, but now he kind of have no choice.
-She’s a lot smarter than you think, if you want to know more, we have a whole binder with her vet records, training evolution, our psychiatrist prescription, doctor diagnostic, law card about service dog/assistance dog, as well as her vaccination record. And some other things too I think
-He’s really invested to do all of that...
-Oh yes, he truly is.”
Steven was clearly the most invested one, Marc and Layla followed, and Jake simply didn’t seem to really give a damn. Even tho he almost looked like he was smiling when Marc finally accepted to do his own research about service dog.
She came with some of her food, a collar, a leash and her vest and Layla was currently out doing grocery shopping and making Anubis dog tags with her and Steven’s phone number. Marc’s phone number is still only for Layla to call, and Jake simply don’t have one.
One of the things that “scared” Marc the most was access issues, he knew he could deal with them until some point and had no doubt that Layla would help if he couldn’t, and she could be really scary when she wanted to. But it was mostly for Steven that he was “scared”, if he was alone and something happened and someone came to Steven to get his “pet” out of the store, or to show a certification or any other illegal shit, Steven would back off, and first he would probably cry and have a panic attack if he try to stand for himself but that does nothing, second, he probably won’t want to go out ever again and third the chance that this person went missing the day after was way too high.
Fingers crossed this wouldn’t happen too much...
Steven was sleeping probably due to everything at the airport, and Marc didn’t seem like he wanted to front so Jake decided to do something instead of just staying at home, something quick kind of unexpected, for him to do so quickly at least but he took Anubis leash put her collar on and they both went for a walk so she could discover what was around her new home
Maybe that was a good idea after all...