Chapter One; Meet Otis

Hey there :D Welcome to my blog!

I wanted to start blogging about some of my daily struggles with mental illnesses and how my dog Otis helps me.

Mental illness is not a joke. I had always known I had depression & anxiety, but there was a lot more too it. In March-April 2017 I went to a out patient treatment center (out of state) for help. I learned a lot about my illnesses, and learned I suffered from more then just anxiety & depression. 

One of those diagnoses was BPD or also known as Borderline Personality Disorder. I had never heard of BPD before, but when answering the questions I got 9/10...My BPD is partly why I wanted to start blogging about my life. I live a life thats pretty unique & not like most. 

But more about my life & mental health will come in later blogs, today is about Otis.

My dog Otis is like no other dog. He is special, unique, and has a gift. I never knew how much Otis meant to me, and how much he helped me in my day to day life till I had to deal with being away from him for a month.

I got Otis about 4 months from getting my head injury (don't worry, that blog is coming). I had asked for another chihuahua as my christmas present (my fiancé & I already had two girls) since I wanted a little boy. It was right before Halloween so the last thing I was doing was looking for my christmas present! 

Well, I found an ad for a little long hair male chihuahua who had a birth defect on his tail & was looking for his forever home.

I fell in love with his picture right away, and after some convincing, my fiancé, Kaden, and I made the trip to Iowa to go pick him up. I believe it was 8 hours round trip.

Otis went everywhere with me from the start, he was a lot more independent then my other two chis, but still liked to be near me. From the start he always 'knew' when I really needed him, like in the car. 

I have really bad car anxiety, some days are worse then others. Otis likes to sit in the backseat or in the middle between Kaden & I. Very rare does he actually sit in my lap, but even from the first week of owning him he knows right before I get scared or anxious & crawls into my lap. He'd have his own special way to comfort me, then would go back to where he was once he knew I was better.

After coming home from treatment I knew I wanted Otis to learn more things to help me. I had gotten a letter from my doctors for him to be my ESA, and after I did some research, I found that he would be better labeled as my psychiatric service dog.

I didn't need him for my emotional support, I needed him to do what he did best, calm me down in public & do tasks to help me in public & at home.

I still ordered him a emotional support animal vest, and got to training him. We only go to public places, and parks. He knows that vest on = work/training and vest off = fun time.

Once he got his vest I started to do more training. This is an example of how Otis got me out of bed, and is still getting me out of bed.

I hope you enjoyed the first blog entry. Im excited & terrified at the same time to write/blog about my life and how Otis helps me. The next blog will be more about me, then from there all about how Otis & I take on the world!