Introducing Heather and Buhda

Hello,
My name is Heather and I was asked by Lija to ost and tell our story. In July of 2000 I was diagnosed with chronic ear pain due to arthritis in my ears. I didnt think much of it because at the time I was a Certified Nurses Assistant and loved my job. As the years passed in June of 2004 I was told I could no longer do my job ad was fired. I then began to get serious ear aches that caused me to have severe nausea and even fainting this caused me to once again go in and be checked. When I did in July of 2004 the Ear nose throat doctor told me i would start loosing my hearing and that he felt a service dog or wheelchair would be neccesary for me of course being a dg person anyway I chose to try to ge a service dog. I tried every possible company out there including canine companions for independance and freedom service dogs both turned me away and said i wasnt serious enough. I gt frustrated and decided i was going to train my own so i set out to find a way to do this I read that i didnt need to go through a company to do so i got me a sheltie first her name was ginger she was great but was dumb as a rock and refused to work soi got a black lab mix which turned out to be part pit bull her name was jetta. She was very intelligent but when she reached 8 months she bit my daughter so i got rid of her too. At this point i was getting frustrated and i went looking for anoher dog. I decided to find a golden retriever to train. I found Buhda. He was a cute little ball of fuzz when i first got him. I then started training him through the southern colorado kennel club here at the fairgrounds . Buhda flew right threw and did everything i asked of him. I again went online when buhda was a littl over 1 yr old i found Co service dogs and decided to give them a call to see if they could test my dog and certify him. In August of 2008 Buhda recieved a passing grade on the public access test and is now certified I was so proud of myself. I finally have my service dog.