Riley's Story

Many years ago, just out of college, I was an office manager in a neurology practice. I began there as a medical transciptionist and rose through the ranks until I managed two offices and the staffs for three docs. I worked there for seven years before I had my first child. Who knew what I learned there about neurological disorders would be invaluable 20 something years later?

My dog, Riley, is a vagabond. He showed up standing in my doorway one day a year and a half ago, while I was going in and out carrying groceries into the house. He is a big yellow lab at 102 lbs., with all of the exuberance of a puppy. When I saw him at my door, my first thought was that he'd notice the cats just inside and come rampaging in and chase them around and destroy my house. So, I firmly said "No, you can't come in" (in a probably less than intimidating voice). He backed up. I told him to sit down and he did. I told him to lie down and he did. I told him to sit up and shake and he presented his paw to me. This was obviously a dog who had been trained. I looked for a collar or identification and he had none. I didn't really know what to do with him. My daughter looked at me pleadingly and said, "Mom, can't we put him in the back yard with Bailey? We can't just leave him out here by himself -- he'll get hit by a car or something."

We are a family of strays, so I knew that we had to have a plan or he would be a stray no longer. I told her we'd keep him for a day or two while we located the family he obviously had to have. My children felt we shouldn't look very hard for his owners, calling them irresponsible, but I knew they had an ulterior motive, so I asked them how they'd feel if one of their pets was missing. Reluctantly, they helped. We looked for signs, posted some of our own, put flyers in the offices of the local vets, called the shelter, and went to PetSmart to put up a notice on the bulletin board. We looked in the local paper. Nothing. I wondered why someone wouldn't be frantically searching for this obviously well-cared for dog, who actually had manners. Of course, we couldn't just call him "dog", right? The kids were calling him "Riley" inside of an hour. I should have seen the writing on the wall. Over the course of the next week, we kept searching. No one was looking for him. I found that odd. We even searched and posted on the internet.

So, Riley became a member of the family. He's a great dog, although walking him is a challenge. He is perfectly content to stay on the sidewalk (like I said, he has manners!), however, for the first mile of a walk, he's basically pulling you along and you're holding on to the leash with all your strength to keep him from dragging your body down the sidewalk. After a while, his enthusiasm calms and walks like a gentleman. Not before you're exhausted though.

We found out a few months ago why Riley's owners either didn't look for him very hard, or perhaps even found a good neighborhood and let him out of the car. Riley is an epileptic. He has grand mal seizures. When a 102 lb. dog has a grand mal seizure, it's a major event. The first time my children witnessed it, there was pandemonium and they called me frantically wondering what to do. I thought perhaps they were mistaken until I saw it for myself. It's a pretty frightening thing to watch. We were worried that he would injure himself, so off to the vet we went and he was prescribed doggy Phenobarbital. For Riley, it's a wonder drug and, as long as he is given his meds on a regular schedule, he doesn't have seizures. Nonetheless, he will always be an epileptic and prone to having seizures. Our goal is to keep them to a minimum and hopefully almost eliminate them, although it will never be safe for him to operate a motor vehicle!

So, the moral of the story is that God gives you only what you can handle and prepares you for it. Sometimes, because He knows you can handle it, He gives you some extra joy. In our case, it came in the form of Riley.