Anastasia Pagonis’ Loyal Guide Dog Sits Next To Swimming Pool During Practice | The Dodo Teammates

you want to play swimming you do we get up at 4am i'll say radar you want to go to practice [Music] he's so excited to go [Music] once i take him off his harness he goes and says hi to all the girls my teammates are so excited to see him they love him [Music] when i get out of the pool he'll come over and like lick my face i'm like that's my baby he's just having the time of his life i think he likes it more than i do my name is anastasia pogonis i'm a blind paralympic swimmer for team usa this is my guide dog radar i have a genetic disease and an autoimmune disease so my vision progressively was going away and then in 2018 it completely lost all usable vision forward independence was the biggest thing for me because i can't go outside and go across the street by myself i need help good boy and then i got my guide dog radar and i got my independence back [Music] [Music] the first time that i touched him it was able to hold him knowing that he was mine it was amazing it didn't feel real i didn't think that he was actually going to be mine [Music] it was actually a lot different than i thought it was going to be read our forward and good boy good boy it took two weeks to learn how to actually work with him he does everything it's insane i thought that he would just help me walk in a straight line but he does everything [Music] we definitely have pretty similar personalities he's very loving and bubbly [Music] i say radar i want to go nani that's what i say to him and he runs into my bed and he hops on my bed and he knows like okay ready to go to sleep [Music] he will sleep flat on his back with his legs and his arms like up and he'll put his head back he sleeps like that all the time it's just like the cutest thing you can't resist it my mom's like leaving me sleeping i'm like oh i can't [Music] he snores so loud and he is so clingy if i didn't have him emotionally i don't know how i would be he's always happy like there is not one second that this dog is not happy whenever i'm like stressed out or sad he'll come up to me and he'll just come cuddle with me [Music] and he'll just sit there and just be like i'm here for you i'm just gonna show you that i'm here for you he sits just like right by the pool deck right next to me where i'm swimming he's my biggest fan i started swimming when i was losing my vision because we thought i should try a less contact sport i was a soccer player which definitely is not good when you cannot see i got into paralympics at my first meet in cincinnati seeing people who had the same disability as me it was the most life-changing thing my dog is absolutely obsessed with my coach he's like we have to see mark as fast as possible i don't know if radar loves mark or if mark loves radar more my coach has been a lifesaver to me nobody wanted to train the blind girl because nobody had faith in me and nobody wanted to really put the effort in to help me and then we found mark during covet he actually set up his backyard pool to be safe for me so that i wouldn't hurt myself on the concrete he wrapped his entire pool in foam so that i was safe it was amazing once i'm done with practice my coach gives me a little bit of peanut butter because of how good he did at practice sitting there waiting for me [Music] i was at the olympic training center for almost two months and radar was my little buddy i honestly would not have been able to go if it wasn't for him we travel through the airport together he is just so smart he just sits there and sleeps he's not fazed by anything he got around the whole olympic training center he memorized it in one day in tokyo the olympic village is very big so me and radar go for walks every day to kind of prepare my body to know that i'm going to be walking a lot when i'm there if i say radar forward and he sees something that's dangerous in front of me he's not going to move like a way or he'll go a different way around it my family loves him he's just an angel that's what we call him we're like where's the angel where's the baby but i think he knows that like he's mine i'm always like so tired and drained from practice and i just know i have my little buddy to come home and just like renew me radar has changed my life i wouldn't even say he's my partner in crime he's like part of me he is my eyes that's pretty much what he is [Music] you

Channel: The Dodo

Views: 794,340

Rating: 4.9777331 out of 5

Keywords: animal video, animals, the dodo, Animal Rescue, dodo, cute animals, pets, wildlife, pet videos, wildlife videos, animals the dodo, the dodo animals, rescuing animals, Anastasia Pagonis, Guide Dog, blind swimmer, blind swimmer anastasia, paralympics, paralympics swimming, labrador, golden lab, golden labrador, the dodo labrador

Id: SkSgwgqddKQ

Length: 6min 10sec (370 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021

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[u/GingerRampage13]

His name is Radar...

I wasn’t ready.