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Pennsylvania service dog owners share how their dogs have made an impact on their lives

  • Aniya Faulcon
Nathan Selove and his Susquehanna Service Dog, Blake. Nathan was speaking with Jessica Selove at Susquehanna Service Dogs in Grantville.

 Susquehanna Service Dogs

Nathan Selove and his Susquehanna Service Dog, Blake. Nathan was speaking with Jessica Selove at Susquehanna Service Dogs in Grantville.

According to the Keystone Human Services’ website, their Susquehanna Service Dogs change lives for more reasons than one.

Kelsey Parsons, Susquehanna Service Dogs training director, Ramon Selove, assistance dog owner and his son, Nathan Selove, assistance dog owner, joined us on The Spark Tuesday to share their stories and discuss Susquehanna Service Dogs and their impact.

Susquehanna Service Dogs is a Keystone Human Services program that helps support individuals that may need full service dog placements for those ages of twelve and older. Those individuals may have any number of physical or psychiatric disabilities and the service dogs are matched with their owners and trained to individually support their needs.  The program also provides individuals with in-home service dogs and companion dogs.

Ramon said, his Susquehanna Service dog, which is a black female labradoodle named Ferna, has been trained to do some tasks that were lifechanging for him.

“I have autism and one of the things that I found in my professional life is that social anxiety would make it more difficult for me to to function,” Ramon said.

Before he retired,  he was a professor of anatomy and physiology at Laurel Ridge Community College. Ramon said, his job involved a lot of social interaction. To reduce his stress levels, Ferna is trained to judge social situations and put distance between Ramon and other people when needed.

“I found work extremely stressful. I had been managing it, but I was actually on the brink of a medical collapse,” Ramon said. “We were pretty sure that I was going to have to retire on disability, but having my dog with me made such a difference in the stress levels at work. I got healthier; I got better. Control of blood sugar was an issue for me. I got much better control of that with less stress and I ended up being able to complete my whole thirty years with a normal retirement, that was ten years of work history that nobody thought I would have. In fact, my physician told my wife I wasn’t going to be alive. But it (his service dog)  just made all the difference in the world for me.”

 

 

 

 

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