Wash Another Prospect?

Still alive. Trying medication adjustments per doc. Still very out of it at points when meds kick in, so may be a bit scarce at times since I make little sense or write weird things when totally medicated. By time I finish, it will have taken me hours just to write and proof read this, like anything I write these days.

I think I am just destined to have bad luck with my service dogs in training and any service dog prospects.  I was feeding animals this evening. Put my hand in puppy bowl ( as I gave to her ) to encourage her to eat from hand and hands are okay by bowl, something I have always done and normally met with wiggly waggy tails because they get extra good treats in the process.  Well tonight she got a wild hair up her ass and decided to growl at me....a freeze/tense, growl warning, go to eat food again sort of way.  This is after demand bark/yowl/howling for almost an hour because I was in the other room ( eating my own dinner and getting meds ) and she was in here in her kennel ( Ember was laying to her side quietly).  So presumably she was hungry, but still.  Not like she was starving for food or ever missed a meal or had to compete with anyone or anything here for her food.

She has been doing the demand bark/yowl/shriek since I got her.  She has gotten somewhat better ( worse - before extinction? ). I think she learned it from watching the misbehaving pit bull belonging to the ladies I got her from.  Then all she had to do was throw a tantrum of her own and I am pretty sure they must have somehow reinforced it, even if unintentional.  That was at 5wks/going on 6 wks old I got her  She is 7wks now.  Not a good sign as far as the growly resource guarding behavior is concerned.  For a normal pet dog, I could work around and through it.  But it is a very undesirable trait for a potential service dog prospect to have - one older dogs would immediately be washed from training for, because it is too much of a risk and liability.  So is she treated same as they would be? Do I just cut the loss and let her go too?  There are other concerns, and again while I think I could train past them given time, time is against me and I lack resources, so I find myself falling back to what my gut instinct says, since it was right before. But then I second guess myself and everything about everything.

I didn't want to say anything before I was more certain, but Ember has been having weird quirks and also not always alerting the older she has gotten, too.  Since I was put on this new medication, it has totally screwed up her alerting. I almost faceplanted the other day getting out of bed because she didn't alert ( she has jumped into bed and woken me for similar situation alerts in the past for reference ).  She is more and more unsure on her own legs/feet. I tried trimming nails and foot fur down as much as I can. Maybe will try boots with good grip and just have her always wear those when working from now on. But otherwise it becomes dangerous because she loses her balance and drags me down with her.  I am out of time and have no options to turn to.  The idea that years of freedom she has brought me will end and I will be alone is... well, frightening.

Laugh if you want, but not being able to know if your body is going to decide to have a random heart rate/blood pressure spazz out that causes you to randomly get very sick and pass out, and the only sure thing that has kept that from happening by warning you in advance being your dog....yeah.  That's not even counting the multitude of other issues like random joint dislocations and tissue injury I can get just by walking or standing.  That's why I need a service dog. Otherwise it is tote around a cane, blood pressure cuff meter, and heart rate monitor, extra meds and smelling salt and the like, and hope that I won't actually need them. But if I do, I will have little if any warning at all, before symptoms hit. Few realize how humiliating it is to stagger suddenly and run into random objects or people ( and the glares you get ) , or how helpless you feel sinking down to the floor in a pre-syncope attack where you basically white out/black out ( no vision or hearing), lose consciousness and sense of anything going on around you, how vulnerable that leaves you if you are all by yourself.  That is my life.  Ember ( even Journey and Chakotay ) has made it a million times better over the years she has helped me, kept me safe.  But now what?

I will go back to barely leaving the house, especially since Mike isn't even here.  He'd go out with me places and get me out at least.  I can't ask or expect my aunt or anyone else to do that. Even when Mike and I are living together again. It is such a huge pressure and burden on our loved ones, that is why a service dog is not just a relief to us as handlers, but to our loved ones who worry so much about us and otherwise have to do so much for us without them to help us. Losing that freedom and security is crushing... especially when you tried so hard to have your backup plan all ready, and you knew just what to do and did it; only life had other ideas.  It always does.  Never works out the way we hoped it would.