A Dog Called Hope by Jason Morgan & Damien Lewis

Author:Jason Morgan & Damien Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

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I rent a car with hand controls and drive to CCI’s Oceanside facility. For the entire thirty minutes I am burning up with excitement. I hope they’ll have my dog just waiting for me in a kennel and raring to go. But no, it’s we humans who are about to be put to the test.

My first impression of the CCI campus is what a beautiful location and setup it is. There are lush semitropical gardens at every turn. I check in and get introduced to my class. There are eight of us, and rumor has it there are sixteen dogs from which we all have to find the perfect match. The one.

I get talking to one of my classmates, Matthew Keillor, a former marine and a quadriplegic. Being former military, he and I bond right away. He tells me his story. He was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq. He’s there with his wife, Tracy, who’s had to do so much for him since his injury. It’s clear from the get-go how much more Matthew needs a dog than I do. He’s as excited as I am, nurturing similar hopes . . . and plagued by similar fears.

There is a part of me that still wonders if I’m worthy, but then we get to see the dogs in action. I’m so excited I feel like I’m hyperventilating. I worry that I won’t be able to sleep a wink the entire time I’m here. The dogs are incredible. I can only imagine how one of them will change my life. I can’t wait to make one my own and take him home to meet the boys.

Matthew is immediately drawn to Guss, a yellow Labrador. The two of them fall in love. It’s clearly the perfect match. They make eye contact straightaway. Guss is pretty laid-back—like Matthew, in a way. But he clearly loves to work, and he gets very excited when he’s running through his commands with Matthew in the chair. Because of his disablement Matthew needs a dog that can get right up in his lap and give him anything that he may have dropped. Guss is especially good at that.

I can’t work out which dog I’m drawn to most. But there is one—Jackson—that I can’t help thinking is right. He’s a black Labrador retriever, and he’s a big, powerful-looking beast. He strikes me as being outgoing and warrior-like, which, curiously enough, is still how I see myself. He’s a dog with real posture and a tough-guy attitude. I can see us making a fine team.

We’re a couple of days into the matching process when we head for dinner at a local restaurant. By chance, the CCI instructors are at an adjacent table. It’s pretty funny, really, because we know all their talk is about which of us will get matched with which dog.

“I’m pretty set on Guss,” Matt tells me. “He’s the one for me.”

I tell him what’s obvious: “Buddy, you and Guss, you’re perfect.

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