Karen Shirk operates a dog-training school in Xenia, Ohio, a charming antebellum village flattened twice by tornadoes. Dressed in baggy jeans and a man’s white T-shirt, swaying deeply as she walked, breathing through the metal button of a tracheotomy tube, she led me into her office at the far end of a brick building that once served as the local V.F.W. Hall. We waded into a crowd of bouncing ecstatic Papillons — toy dogs whose wide, silky ears inspired the breed’s name, the French word for “butterfly.” Though she stepped away only a moment earlier, the dozen little dogs rejoiced as if they’d feared never seeing her again: some spun in excitement, others leapt onto her desk and one tap-danced along the computer keyboard. They raised their pointed little faces and emitted high-pitched yips of hallelujah. When Shirk, who is 49, reached her desk chair, they settled on the floor at her feet, folded up their ears like kites and watched her. When she laughed, they took out their ears and waved them around.
As a young woman, Shirk pursued a master’s degree in social work and held a full-time job with cognitively impaired adults. She felt, she says, “carefree,” until the day she collapsed in respiratory distress and was rushed to an emergency room. Hospitalized for months, she received the grim diagnosis, at age 24, of myasthenia gravis, a rare neuromuscular disease. She left the hospital only to become a respirator-dependent patient in need of constant care.
“Why don’t you get a service dog?” a new nurse asked Shirk, six years into her illness. Supine in front of the TV, Shirk seemed unaware of the hour, day or month. A dog could offer mobility assistance, the nurse said, like opening a drawer and bringing clean socks. She seemed also to suspect that a dog might jump-start the life of this sad and lonely patient.
“How could I take care of a dog?” Shirk rasped. “I can’t even take care of myself.”
Read Melissa Fay Greene's New York Times article HERE. See video HERE.
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