What awards do your animal companions deserve?

From time to time there is a special story we want to share with our blog readers. This is one of those special stories!
 
PURE GOLD
By Allen Parton
 
When Endal, a quiet, unassuming yellow Labrador, won PDSA's Gold Medal in 2003, it was another remarkable episode in a remarkable life. (PDSA is the United Kingdom's leading veterinary charity. It was started in London by animal lover Maria Dickin during World War I as the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals of the Poor to offer free veterinary care.)
 
Endal's is also a story of the man whose world the dog helped to transform. On a late autumn day in 2002, a Labrador, smart in a purple jacket, his intelligence shining through in his bright-eyed alertness, stood attentively beside a man in a wheelchair. Before them a ceremony was taking place.
 
The assembled guests were told how, after the man had been knocked from his wheelchair by a reversing car, the dog rolled his companion's unconscious form into the recovery position, draped a blanket over him, nudged his mobile phone close to his face, and then went to fetch help. Actions that many people might not have had the composure and the calm sense of purpose to carry out.
 
Afterwards, HRH Princess Alexandra presented the Labrador with the PDSA's Gold Medal, awarded to animals who have shown outstanding devotion to their duties in time of peace. For his astonishing response to the accident, Endal became one of only three dogs to receive the medal since its introduction.
 
The dog's name was Endal; his companion was Allen Parton. What brought them together and to this ceremony were a series of events that were as despairing as, eventually, they were hope-filled.
 
A Lifetime Lost
 
When Allen Parton, a weapons electronics officer in the Royal Navy, waved goodbye to his wife, Sandra, and their two children, Liam and Zoe, he was also bidding farewell to life, as he had known it. It was 1991, and Allen was heading out to the Gulf War. He was, of course, fully aware of the dangers that lay ahead; but he was equally sure that experience and good fortune would see him return home untouched and unharmed.
 
Allen was wrong; Allen got unlucky. A month after he arrived, his military car was wrecked in an accident and Allen's body with it. He woke six weeks later in a British military hospital with his right side devoid of feeling and his mind even number. His memory had been so horribly obliterated by the injuries he sustained that he was unable to recognize Sandra and had no recollection of his marriage or his children. He had to be introduced to his family.
 
The simplest of words - bed, chair - deserted him. He spoke, if at all, as he remembered, in disjointed, meaningless fragments. Imprisoned by his wheelchair, trapped by his fumbling speech, and dispossessed of his own past, Allen saw no reason to have faith in the future. Twice, he tried to take his own life.
 
After five years of hospitalization and rehabilitation, Allen at last returned to his home in Hampshire, a stranger to the person he had once been, and raging at his fate. By his own admission, Allen was all too willing to share his anger and bitterness with those around him. "I refused to accept I was disabled and I'm ashamed to say I was pretty much horrible to everyone," he admitted.
 
An Encounter
 
Sandra, who gave up her job as a nurse to care for Allen, had volunteered as a puppy walker for Canine Partners, an organization that trains dogs to help disabled people enjoy a greater degree of independence. One morning, in the summer of 1997, the bus that had been due to ferry Allen to the day center he attended failed to turn up. Rather than leave her husband to brood at home, Sandra took Allen with her to the Canine Partners training center.
 
There Allen sat, his wheelchair parked in a corner, as self-conscious and withdrawn as he always was in public. Until, that is, his eye caught a young dog, resting from a training session. The dog wandered over to the wheelchair, accepted Allen's offer of a welcoming pat on the head and promptly dived on to his lap. It was Endal. Allen's life was about to emerge from night and into the sun.
 
A Partnership Is Born
 
Everyone saw that there was a clear and instant bond between Endal and Allen; something instinctive and rooted in the way they interpreted each other's needs. After a few more meetings between the two -- it was difficult to tell who anticipated their visits to the training center more, Allen or Endal.
 
Allen decided to apply to take Endal as an assistance dog. It was only while the forms were being completed that Allen understood and accepted the importance of the psychological step he was taking: "I had to describe my disabilities, and this was the first time I had admitted there was something wrong with me. It was a cathartic experience. Until I met Endal, I was in the depths of despair. Now I suddenly saw a chink of light."
 
Life Begins Anew
 
With Allen still struggling as much with his word recollection as his mobility, Endal's ability to read the sign language with which Allen was sometimes forced to communicate was central to their relationship. A pat on Allen's head meant, and was understood as, "fetch my cap." A touch on Allen's cheek, and Endal was off to bring him his razor case. Hands held up? A second later Allen's gloves appeared.
 
Tugs (handles) were added to everything -- doors, cupboards, clothes drawers, the toilet seat -- anything in the Parton house that needed opening or closing or lifting. They made it possible for Endal to help Allen get dressed, wash, and manage the domestic chores.
 
Endal was soon as adept at shopping as he was in helping Allen around the house. Allen simply issued the appropriate instructions from his wheelchair -- cereal, soup, tins of tomatoes, bread. Endal would unfailingly nose the requested item from the grocery shelf and drop it into the shopping basket. He even helped to pay. Once Allen had tapped in his PIN, Endal would gently retrieve the money and card from the cash dispenser.
 
The differences that Endal brought to Allen's everyday world weren't just practical, however impressive his abilities to sniff out a bargain at the supermarket. They were therapeutic too. Where five years of intensive speech coaching had seen little progress, Allen's urge to talk to Endal meant that he was becoming ever more articulate; his vocabulary was becoming as broad as it had been before the accident.
 
Allen, embarrassed at his inability to remember words let alone names, would shy from social contact. Now Endal gave him the confidence to re-engage with the world that once had felt so alien and intimidating. "Endal provides a talking point," explained Allen. "People stroke and chat about him which helps me to socialize."
 
Perhaps most importantly of all, Endal restored Allen to his family, allowing him the emotional strength needed to rediscover and renew the bonds of human love. "Life will never be the same again but, thanks to Endal, Allen has a second chance," said Sandra. "The children lost their old dad but Endal has given them a new one." Recently, Allen and Sandra took their wedding vows again.
 
Fame
 
A dog as talented as Endal is a difficult secret to keep. His prowess at the cash machine was spotted by a journalist from a national newspaper. After that the media floodgates opened wide. Reporters and film crews from around the world have queued up to watch and marvel as Endal, wallet in mouth, picks up Allen's prescription at the chemist's (pharmacy) or operates the electronic doors on a train.
 
What really threw the spotlight on Endal, however, was the story of the heroics for which he was awarded the PDSA's Gold Medal. Invited to attend a stand at Crufts in 2001, the pair had been exercising in the car park afterwards when the vehicle, unseen by Allen until the last second, struck him and threw him from his wheelchair. Endal's resolve and quiet control made headline news and won him that most prestigious of animal awards.
 
The Future
 
Endal is now twelve years old. There will come a time when he will be too old to carry out his duties, however strong and faithful the urge to do so. When that happens, Allen will be there to look after him, repaying what he acknowledges to be an unrepayable debt.
 
The day in the car park that saw Endal save Allen's life by grasping his coat and pulling him, unconscious, into the recovery position was truly remarkable. What is almost as remarkable is that Endal has been saving Allen's life, precious piece by precious piece, each and every day, before and since.
 
BIO:
Allen Parton has written about Endal. Endal has his own wikipedia page and web site titled "Endal: Dog of The Millennium" www.milleniumdog.freeserve.co.uk. Allen writes about how life changing and enabling these dogs are, especially in his case.
 
On his website Allen writes, "One dog cut right through that defensive armour and saw the real Allen Parton. Like a shining star Endal came bounding into that dark place and touched my very heart. He just said to me with those doggie eyes, "Hold onto my tail, and I'll pull you out of here, at your pace, and with no conditions." He has to this day never stopped pulling. His unconditional love has healed so many of the hurts, his mischief-making brought laughter into my saddest days, and his zest for life has rubbed off on to me.
 
"He never judges me; he never looks away because of my condition and his aiding of me when I am at my weakest make us both an invincible team. I can put my hand out to my side day or night and he is always there. He has taught me to love, laugh, and live again."
 
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:
What awards do your animal companions deserve?