How My First Guide Dog Died...

Oh hi hello you guys oh my goodness I feel like I haven't filmed just like a sit-down direct talk to you guys video in a really long time and I'm happy to be here I'm also kind of a little bit nervous to film this video I haven't even told my mom what I'm filming mmm I'm getting a no I mean what do you feel I mean I'm filming the story of Gypsys death oh oh wow that's a sad one yes it's a heavy video so I'm a little nervous because I don't really talk about this much think I'll take my tea inside yeah thanks mom and I literally have to like go to like the Fox lot to like film for a TV show in a bit so hopefully I don't cry too much and ruin my makeup I really shouldn't have worn makeup for this video but here we are when I'm filming this it's still May when you're seeing this it's most likely early June but May 22nd will be the five year anniversary of gypsies passing for those who don't know gypsy was my first guy dog Gallup who you all know and love is my second guy dog and I usually have gallop like chillin on the bed with me when I do sit-down videos especially when they're dog related but I don't want him to hear this story we don't talk about gypsy around him you know dad so back in December was on my way to Europe I was on a Delta flight to Europe Delta's Bay Love Delta and we were over to Europe so it's like a really it was like a 14-hour flight and so I had a lot of movie watching time everybody had been talking about this documentary this was back in December I was going to Europe to film my series the 10-year journey so I'll link that playlist down below if you want to see my 10 part series on my 10 year journey going blind everybody for months have been talking about pick of the litter especially in the guide dog community and I really wanted to see it but it wasn't like out in theatres near me but I had heard it was on delta flights I know my mom had previously tried to watch it was like oh it was too emotional I couldn't I had to turn it off because it was like too close to home a lot of people just random strangers had told me about it been like oh my god I sobbed and I kind of thought like Oh watch it but like it alone it won't bake fire anything like I have a guy dog this is my life this is my journey like I'm blind it's fine and I decided to watch it and literally guys within the first five minutes I was like streaming tears on the plane crying so hard because the documentary opened with a number of blind people discussing moments their guide dog saved their life and it just hit home July will be 12 years of being a guide dog user for me which is insane I can't believe it's been that long August will be five years with with Gallup so I had about two and a half months between gypsies passing and receiving Gallup and watching this documentary really sparked me to want to talk about gypsies story and the importance of Guide Dogs because I know I've done a lot of videos about Guide Dogs I'll link my doggy doggy playlist below as well I've done tons of videos about my dogs but I don't think I've ever really sat down and talked about the importance of the difference that they make in our lives and about gypsies passing and how it happened and how it felt and the impact that not having her for those two and a half months made on my life and when I watch that documentary it just made me feel like I have this platform and I want to share this experience whether it helps other guide dog or service dog users to deal with their own transition of dog or whether you know family pet passes or anything any kind of loss in your life or just help able-bodied people who don't rely on service dogs to really understand the importance and the difference that these dogs make in our lives because it is something I struggled to quantify for for people who don't use guide dogs I struggled to put into words the meaning and the difference these dogs really do make in our lives or and specifically I can speak for myself in my life and that's what I'm going to try to do today so okay I got chip C when I was 13 so right before or right during kind of the peak of my vision loss when I was actually getting gypsy for the month-long training in Quebec is when I started noticing a real significant dip in my vision you might be wondering why I was getting her before my the majority of my vision loss at 14 and that's because I've always been legally blind I've always been completely night blind and from the time I was eight I was a full-time cane user because I've never had depth perception so for those reasons even though I consider myself to have been excited because I could see color and I could read print and all of these things I was legally considered blind and I was at a point where getting a guide dog would still really benefit me my life my independence my confidence and so I got one and over that next year the first year of having her it's a really tough year it's a really tough transition it's a lot of work especially when you're young like I was which is why so many guide dog schools don't even consider giving service dogs to children despite how much work it was and how hard it was I would never trade it for anything and it was so worth it so also like the mira foundation down below where you can get guide dogs as child so like I said noticed a lot of significant vision loss I ended up losing all of my friends and being really badly bullied I dealt with really severe depression suicidal ideation it was a really dark time in my life and you know I've talked a lot about that on this channel before and gypsy was like my one constant other than of course my family she was like that one constant that no matter what like she was there and throughout the next seven years of my life she went through all of high school with me my first love my first heartbreak my next two relationships she went through high school graduation prom she was my prom date cute little photo here of us we moved out I lived on my own downtown Toronto with her in our own bachelorette pad just two of us girls for the next two years of my life we toured the world together launched my speaking career bunch of photos here of our experiences taking on the world together and it was amazing and most guy dogs work between six to eight years of service so she graduated at two-and-a-half with me so that would have taken her you know to about ten years old if she did the full eight years and at that point as I said we were at about going on seven years of service and the mayor Foundation would come out pretty much every single year and do a checkup observer guiding if there was a problem like if I was having an issue they would come out sooner and we would work through it but if not they would come out kind of annually to do a full checkup spend kind of a day half a day with us do different walking routes testing to make sure that the dog was still guiding properly and all of that was still good for service work and this was a difficult time in my life for a number of reasons I had an accident in February just two weeks after my 21st birthday way okay at 22 weeks after my 20th birthday I had a really severe accident while I was working that caused severe damage to my neck wasn't like one of those foam neck braces it was real cute took a six week medical leave from work and at the end of my six week medical leave I chose to leave my dream job which was very difficult and that's you know a whole other situation so I was already dealing with PTSD and the loss of my dream job and it was difficult because my boyfriend at the time was also studying abroad in Europe for six months so I was apart from the one kind of closest person in my life I ended up having to move out of my downtown Toronto apartment and back in with my parents in the GTA greater greater toronto area or the suburbs of toronto for those who aren't familiar yeah a lot in my life was changing and once again like gypsy was this one constant feature that was there for me I had never liked no love like I had promote starting I had like never known that love like you know parents always talked about the love of a child is like no other love you know that was like the love I had for her and yeah she was just like I just was so grateful that I still had her and so in April I had my exam with her and they approved her to work for one more year which would have brought her to the typical kind of eight year mark of service and I mean some dogs worked for less than six some dogs worked for more than eight it's just a ballpark it's just an average but I was really excited that we were gonna get to that like kind of eight year mark together and she was nine and a half it was the beginning of May now first week of May and I was actually at this point still living in downtown Toronto I moved back to my hometown with my parents but two weeks later so like mid-may and then she died May 22nd so tough month quit my job that month it was a lot first week of May I started noticing she was gassy now gypsy girl was a gassy puppy when I got her she had a lot of gas it was gnarly she like could clear a classroom I'm not kidding at one point my English class had to move classrooms because she had created such an explosion of scent in the room like it was horrid and so at a very young age at two-and-a-half woman when I got her shortly after I had to switch her to seniors food which is typically four seven and up but she was on seniors food from the time she was very young because she just couldn't handle a lot of food and so she started getting gassy again so I was like oh no do we have to like such a food this puppyhood issue is coming back up again and it's not something he wanted to smell like tell you that but you know like the gas doesn't seem like a huge deal it's not like you're like oh my god rushed my puppy to the emergency room something's wrong I didn't like it was fine and she very much like when we would take her to the dog park people will be like oh how old is she and I'd say nine like oh nine months because she looked like a puppy till her dying day she acted like a puppy like there was nothing about this dog that screamed nine and a half years old she was a little spring chicken till the last day she started eating her food slower and I thought okay maybe she's just kind of starting to do that grazing thing where they like periodically throughout the day instead of like eating their two meals separately and then she started throwing up that's when I was like okay I need to take her to the vet so I took her to the vet and they were like you know the snow is melting you live in downtown Toronto in the big city like maybe she's sniffing things or getting at things on the street that are making her sick we'll give her some special food so they gave me like a canned food for bowel issues they said you know do that for four days and if there's still issues come back I did that she was seeming better but still not fully there and as soon as I started transitioning her back onto her normal food she was vomiting a lot and still not seen herself and so I took her back and at this point they did blood testing and they put her on a medicine that would heal her stomach which again the medicine like seemed to help and I really the blood test tests came back and everything was normal she was fine but like mom in tuition I knew she wasn't fine you know I'm still living on out I still have to do work it was my my last speech that I did while working for this company before I left officially and it was in Sudbury which is you know you can drive there but it's like I don't know like an eight-hour drive from Toronto working you know like we definitely just took a flight which is like an hour long flight on one of those little tiny miniature planes right before I was about to get on the plane she threw up I was like oh no she hadn't thrown up for like a day or two I was like oh shoot but usually once she got out of her system she was okay and I had no like I had no choice the plate was like about to board like I was like oh my god what do I do so I just got on the flight it was only an hour and she was fine you know she kind of slowly ate her dinner in that night the next day I got up I did my speech and while I was on stage and she was on stage with me she threw up again and not for me it was like the final straw like I was like no more like I'm pushing my bed for answers so as soon as I got back that next day from Sudbury I immediately went to the vet and I was like look it's been like 2 and a half weeks of this we need answers and so they did an ultrasound and the ultrasound showed an obstruction in her bowels at that point they told me that it was most likely that she had eaten something that was too big to pass the second option was like colitis for dogs which seems to make sense since she's like I said she grew up like when she was little she had such sensitive bowels that we'd to put her on seniors food so I was like okay that makes sense and the third option that was least likely was cancer and they said you know we'll have to do an exploratory surgery but the vet wasn't gonna be able to do it for a few days I really didn't feel like the fact that she had eaten something that was stuck in her bowels was likely cuz she was never that dog like she was never the dog they're like 8-year socks or swallowed a toy orally she just didn't do that but she was only like 25% lab she was mostly Bernese Mountain Dog and Bernese Mountain Dogs aren't really foodie so I just didn't seem like her like Wyatt nine and a half which he all of a sudden start like eating non-food related things it just didn't seem reasonable you know I was hopeful cuz that would be the best-case scenario colitis or Crohn's would be treatable and like I said it seemed reasonable to me and then obviously like cancer they're telling me not likely and I just didn't want to let myself go there I didn't want to think about it over the next few days I was living back with my parents and it took like a real turn for the worst she was like sad you know like she was she was this dog that was known for wagging her tail non-stop like it was problematic like she would just never stop wagging her tail people would just laugh at her cuz her tail was just like like she was so silly she was always happy and I always say like I feel like she was sent to me to teach me how to be happy in the tough times cuz no matter what it was like even if she was scared or sad she was wagging her tail like it was just silly she would sleep while wagging her tail like ridiculous and all of a sudden she just like wasn't really wagging her tail she was like not eating at all we were giving her the canned she was like you know she would eat it but like not like excited like she used to be and when she was on walks she was like really slow eat a lot of grass which they do when they're not feeling well you know she was still throwing up a lot and every time she would get sick and she opened she wasn't pooping at all you know her last full day I was getting really bad she just liked our and she put her head down and every time she would get sick she would almost look sad and like embarrassed and like apologetic I would just have to be like it's okay it's fine you know like I don't have to comfort her through it her stomach was starting to get like loud like you could just hear it rumbling but not in like oh and I'm hungry way and like I'm sick but it was just like her it was just horrible sounds I just called the button I was like look we need to get her in look I'm not letting my dog suffer thankfully the vet was like okay you know I understand they knew she's a guide dog like they knew she's a working dog and it's very important that I have my dog and that her health is of the utmost importance because she has a job to do that's integral to my ease and success in life and so she said she'd come in on her day off to do the surgery and so that night I just this pink doughnut bed she loved that bad she had it from time she's puppy and I just like laid in the bed with her with my stomach or with my head on her stomach which we used to lay like that all the time and herself cause she's so loud you know I've been praying and praying and praying every night that she would get better and something just came over me that night and I needed I knew I needed to stop selfishly praying and I needed to pray for what was best for her so I just said you know just tomorrow just love whatever's is best happen whatever's meant to be for her I took a sleeping pill that night because I wasn't able to sleep for like days and I knew what the next day being her surgery I liked definitely wasn't gonna be almost asleep so I took a sleeping pill I do that like on very rare occasions but when I do you know it makes you sleep very deeply and I'm burned my dream like this this might be gross for some of you sorry it was like this really bad smell in my dream that was almost making me feel sick and I woke up and she was sick in the corner of my room and the smell was just not like normal sick like it was oh just like a rancid smell infectious I don't know like it smelled so awful my mom came downstairs and where I was like my room was downstairs on the main floor so she came downstairs and she helped me and we sat with gypsy so I just went back to sleep because I I just couldn't be up and I couldn't think about it and my mom's out with her that night the next morning my dad took her for a walk you know he told me he just like after their walk he just sat with her thanked her for everything she had done for me and let her know that I'd be okay if anything even though the bat was hopeful I think we all like new so my dad stayed home from work we all drove up together and she sat in the backseat with me and she had this one toy it was like a gecko and is like particular type of squeak that she loved and it was the only toy she would play with in the last a little while of her life so run the car with us and she was like squeaking it lightly in the backseat with me I got out of the car when we got to the bed it's like a 15-minute drive and I put her harness on perfectly guided me to the back and that was the last time she ever had her harness on or guided me I feel like I just wish I had liked knowing that so I could have really like cherish the experience of like feeling her guiding me for the last time like I said I really wasn't like letting myself think that like I knew it was serious and there was something not good but I just I didn't think this would be in you know they have a room at the bed and I guess I should have known when they like brought us into that room so they they brought us into the room which is where you technically like say goodbye like in that room they have like information about like read like the urns like so I should have known it's like where they put people when they're like saying goodbye before they put them to sleep and stuff and it's just my mom my dad and Jeff see and I in there and gypsy was barking you know in her like downward dogs friendly jumping around and it was like this last like spark of her look she just had this like burst of puppy energy again I didn't cry like I didn't really give her like a serious hug like I was just like money like I was kind of like playing with her you know I got it again like I just wasn't thinking that's the last time I'm gonna see her awake but it was and so when we were leaving that they said if you don't hear from us for a long time it's a good thing so I went home and obviously it's hard for me to like eat or do anything and at this point I'm also still dealing with like my PTSD and all that so I was like recovering but I was still wasn't in like a great place I just I remember sitting in like my back yard it was it was really it was a beautiful day like it was bright sunny warm and so I sitting in my backyard and I remember like watching like silly dr. Phil clips on YouTube and stuff like that like just anything that would distract me and we hadn't heard from them in a really long time it's a couple of hours and so really okay it must be a good thing like but I was so anxious like I was like I need to just hear something so I had my mom call and check in and they said oh she hasn't even gone in yet there's been a delay I'm so frustrated because I was like what do you mean like and then they called me around 3:30 and we'd brought her in around like 10:30 so it was really frustrating waiting that long the vet told me that unfortunately it was cancer you found a five inch tumor in her bowels and a blockage on top of that of like leaves and sticks in the grass that she was trying to eat to make herself feel better but it could pass they could tell me that the cancer had already spread and it was a very fast-acting cancer and they had found that the cancer had spread to all of her lymph nodes throughout her body you know basically there was nothing that could be done and you know I knew like okay maybe we could remove six inches of the bowel they would have to remember like half an inch on either side she would obviously retire immediately maybe we could like remove to six inches of bowel and like I could have her for like a few more weeks but just like the night before when I'd stop praying selfishly like I knew that that thought was selfish because in the nine in the seven years I had her she had never been so sad she had in like the last 48 hours of her life and I didn't want that gypsy because it wasn't her it wasn't I didn't want to make her live on this earth unhappy as a family we all decided it would just be best um to keep her sleep and I said to the bad leg is there any way I can come and see her one more time to say an actual goodbye since I hadn't really said that when she went in and they're like you know we can't wake her from surgery I said like is there any way you can just let me come see you by like if I'm up there within half-an-hour can I just say goodbye you know they said it's not something they would usually do but they would let me so we immediately jumped in the car and we got to the vet and obviously we're all absolutely mess one by one we each went in and she was laying on a metal surgical table in a small room and she had a big blanket over her whole body right under it's right under her like the armpit of her top leg so it's just her front paws sticking out with her little white socks and her head she was laying on her side and her mouth was open and she had a big plastic tube down her throat that was breathing for her so I could put my hand on her you know stomach over the blanket I could feel her breathing but you know I knew it wasn't actually her I remember just holding her paw and I you still always like it was like a comfort thing for me from the time I got her I would rub her ear on my lips it was just so soft it was like a safety thing so just a rupture here on my face you know what I just whispered it dirtier like thank you just told her how much I loved her and um that was it and we decided to cremate her and I got the most expensive beautiful tipsy urn and I got butt imprint of red Paul done but I remember just going home it she died just after 4 p.m. I remember going home and sitting in her bears sat in the pink bed and I held that gecko squeaky toy and I carried that thing around for like at least a week like it just sat in my purse like everywhere I went I had that cuz it was like the last thing she ever played with so it's just kind of like this piece of her I was just like really numb they were like a post about her so tell my friends and family new because I didn't want I didn't want to talk to anybody like I didn't I didn't take phone calls and answer texts early date and I just didn't want to hear from anyone and then I called my boyfriend who was like I said living in the UK and he had no idea that any of this was going on and I just called her and I said are you called him and I just told him he was like on a bus and I just said like gypsies dead and he just like was like speechless he like didn't know what to say that was the only person like I had a call with coz four days I just didn't talk to anyone and I went to sleep that night and I took I took another sleeping pill it was the only way I could sleep at the time I woke up the next morning holding her squeaky toy and it just like hit me that she like for the first time in seven years I slept without a dog in my room and that whoo like it wasn't a dream it was real and I just took the sweet you toy and I like squeaked it once and it just like triggered me okay ran upstairs and my mom was out at the time but my dad was in his office and he had like an armchair in the corner of his office and he went to it and it just screamed she's dead and she's heard outside he's like away the story um but I just screamed she's dead and he just sat in the chair and he curled to me up in a ball and I sat on his lap and I'm like oh tiny ball just sobbed they just rocked me and I literally felt like I was like five again I just didn't know what to do is literally for days I would just like like my mom would come to check on me and I would just be like curled in a ball and a blanket on the bathroom floor not listening to anything not watching anything not doing anything just like laying there I couldn't eat I couldn't do anything it was so weird because everybody from like work and friends like all these people would send flowers it was literally like a human died like I had one person call me and she was like I didn't cry this much when my grandmother died like people were posting all over Facebook like photos with her and memories with her like I had friends that were vloggers that were writing blogs about her like it was crazy like it was like huge like everybody was sending like these long emails stories about her everybody was sending flowers and everybody was sending daisies it was like so weird I don't know what it was and so ever since that daisies have been like my favorite flower and they remind me of gem scene and then the week anniversary of her death I went with my mom into Toronto where we had lived and I went to her favorite dog park and she had a favorite tree and I went and I left some of the daisies and I left that squeaky toy there I like had to just say it like just let it go and say goodbye and start to heal but you know for like two weeks after her death like I wouldn't even touch my king if I went anywhere I would only do sighted guide if I was like refused to use my cane it took me a long time before I felt comfortable using my cane full-time for those two and a half months before I got gallop oh and I had called the guide dog school by the way I called the guide dog school the day before every guide dog school is different the guide dog school has to make the medical decisions some you get to make it at the mirror Foundation like we got to make our own medical decisions but I called him the day before and I was crying and I told them what was happening and they just told me like we trust you to do what's best for gipsy and that meant a lot to me and so the next day after she died that was the only other call I made and I was like I can call if you want I was like I have to do this like she was mine so I called and I let them know and I was sobbing and they were like you know do you want another dog and I said yes thank you and so they were able to fit me into their last slot in their August class which I was very grateful for and I wasn't some guy dog groups at the time on Facebook because you know struggle of getting your guide dog so young is none of your other blind friends up guide dogs I was the first and I was the first by many years and so when my dog died I was like the first of my guide dog ins and Friends to have a guide dog died so I like no I couldn't relate to anybody like there was nobody I felt I could talk to that truly understood what it was like to lose what felt like a lemon to me except these Facebook groups of guide dog users and there was a lot of people who were on their fifth or sixth dog who gave me a lot of comfort at that time you know when I had gypsy I'd used my cane for short periods of time like if I gone on like a vacation and hadn't brought her or you know if I was going to a movie and decided not to bring her whatever but I didn't used it for like as my daily tool all the time for like a really long time in doing so it really made me realize that I'm just always gonna be a guide dog user no matter what I just have to be like I knew some people who are always gonna be cane users and they love it there's some who are interchangeable I'm just I'm a guide dog user through and through with my cane it changes everything like I don't feel like I can navigate the in the world or move as freely as quickly as confidently I I became like a different person like I felt shy I feel like I couldn't talk to new people I felt like I wasn't me like this huge part of my personality felt like it was gone - it was a very strange feeling I didn't feel confident or independent enough to like go out alone anymore like I said I felt shy around new people I felt insecure it was a very strange feeling I moved very slowly I was like much more fearful of the world it was really weird there's a lot more that went into my healing you know my PTSD spiraled down really badly I my PTSD had obsessive-compulsive symptoms as well so I became extremely obsessive specifically with dogs and service dogs I just watched every documentary I learned everything there was to know I researched every school that existed the whole history like everything I became obsessed with buying dog things everything and you know I went on medication anxiety medicine which made a world of difference starting to eat again was a really big process there was a lot that went into that that summer and I want to say like it was the second worst year of my life like it rivals the year I lost my vision in 2008 it was that difficult for me yeah 2008 and 2014 are they by far the worst years of my life I remember reading this story that was about how dogs there's this little boy who his parents you know to put their dog down and his parents wanted him to see it because they wanted him to know about death and understand it and if that was like are you sure you want him to see this and they're like oh yeah and yes boy like do you understand what's happening so yeah he's going to heaven and he said you know how do you feel about that he's like it's okay I like dogs don't live as long as people because dogs are here because dogs already know how to be happy and love everybody and humans are still trying to learn and that's why they have to live so long and that was like really comforting to me and I felt like that was exactly what she was there to do for me and I realized like part of the struggle of becoming a guide dog user is knowing that you have to lose them in transition to a new one and of course transitioning to gallop is a whole other story I almost left without a guide dog if you want to hear that story I can share it yeah I know that every every guide dog will come to me with a different lesson and will come for a different chapter and it's so crazy that I like I feel like gypsy passing away it really closed a huge painful chapter in my life and gallop started this new journey with me one of my first video this was when I got home from training with gallop and I did a Q&A about it and you know that's when I moved back home I started my own speaking business I started my youtube channel I started vlogging and it started this chapter which is super cool you know I know losing a pet is painful and I've lost family pets but there is no comparison to me it is like losing a child or like losing a piece of you not to like diminish those experiences but that's how it feels and there's no other way I can put it you know I know I have to keep going through it and I know one day it'll happen with Gallup I do feel it because I've been through and I'm more prepared this time but you never know how it's going to be at least I know this time when that does come I'll have all of you there with me supporting me and him but yeah that was the story of gypsies death with her anniversary approaching it just feels right to share this five years later I never talk about it anymore which is why it's like so hard when I do sorry for crying so much in this video but yeah ever since December ever since I watched that documentary it's just been like it keeps popping into my mind like you need to share that story and I don't know why and I don't know if there's a moral to this story and I don't know if it was important or interesting it just for some reason there's been something in me telling me for six months now that I need to share this story so here we are I don't know how to close this but I love Egypt see and I know you're looking down on me and I know you would have loved living in a lie and living this life and I know you come visit to Gallup and you'll always be my first baby

Channel: Molly Burke

Views: 547,308

Rating: 4.9794965 out of 5

Keywords: blind, blind girl, retinitis pigmentosa, motivation, inspiration, disability, accessibility, awareness, fashion, vlog, guide dog, makeup, beauty

Id: 5PV3oljLCJA

Length: 36min 1sec (2161 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2019