11/11/2025
I will always stand by my dogs, even when the owners don't.
I'm telling you right now that having a service dog is a privilege, not a right, and some people really don't deserve it.
If you've followed me for a while, you'll remember this dog. Natasha, Tasha for short. She was pulled from Stephens county shelter and trained as a diabetic alert dog for a 19 year old in Ohio who wanted the security of a service dog for college.
So imagine my surprise when Tuesday of last week, I get a call from the shelter saying that they have Tasha.
Last I heard from her original owner, this young lady decided she didn't want a service dog, left the dog with her mom "because my mom loves her so much, I just can't bring myself to take her," and then decided she shouldn't have to pay the reminder of the $5k she owed me for the dog.
Here's an important piece of info: when I dropped Tasha off, I explicitly said I would keep her chip info in my name and would not transfer it until the dog was paid off.
The entire family cut me off soon thereafter. There were no other dogs in the house when I left Tasha there. They now have three small dogs. Apparently Tasha was given to the grandfather and I'm not sure what happened after. So much for the mom loving Tasha so much.
Tasha was picked up by the dog warden in Ohio, running loose. The shelter called me because her chip is still in my name. Even after all these years, she's legally mine and that family could lay no claim to her even if they wanted to (and I don't think they do). How she ended up running loose, I'll never know.
But here's what I do know; She's in bad shape. She weighs 90lbs when she should weigh 45. All that extra weight caused some major callouses on her elbows. Her nails are grown so long that it's pushing her toes into the wrong position when she stands. She's obviously not been kept up on vaccines since she has kennel cough. And when the dog warden first brought her in, she had a UTI so severe that she was peeing blood.
Words cannot describe how angry I am with that family. I can't believe they did this to her. I entrusted them with a living, breathing animal that they promised to care for. I told them over and over and over that I get her back if they ever couldn't keep her. That was the agreement.
Her nails and her weight are straight up animal abuse. I should have went and got her the second the girl said she wanted to stop payments. Which, on that note, they still owe me a couple thousand dollars.
Tasha has a long road ahead on all fronts. I'm extremely thankful to have had donations that covered the trip to Ohio and the fee to reclaim her from the shelter. I need to get her in with my vet, though, because she skipped dinner tonight and that's a really bad sign with her. The shelter also didn't give me enough of the antibiotic shes on to last the full seven day course, I'm two pills short.
This is why so many service dog trainers are moving away from placing out of state and only placing within a certain radius of where they live.
