water’s edge. She was a task- trained service dog for Kate. In
We started training immediately with the building blocks for everything else—basic obedience. Kelby was learning fast, and many of the lessons came from Oakley. When Oakley died, once we came to our senses, we let Kelby see and smell her. A couple of times, she went over and took a toy to Oaks, trying to entice her to play. By the end of the day, I think she figured it out. She would go over and smell around Oakley’s snout. And I think she realized that Oakley was not breathing. The next morning, Kelby and I got up at dawn and took a hike in the state forest. We went to see the sunrise at an overlook. In hindsight, that was my way of grieving, of getting past Oakley. I was still doing Oakley things, but without Oakley, if that makes sense. Kate and I thought about stopping, just raising Kelby as a pet. But it wouldn’t have been fair to Kelby if we just stopped
her spare time, she loved to wear costumes and pull holiday wagons. She climbed ladders, something I never taught her. She got onto playground swings. There seemed to be nothing she couldn’t do. Thousands of people—in our area and around the world—knew her from following her training and adventures on our active social media accounts. And then she was gone.
in, feet first.’ Kate and I got formal rescue training and lifeguard certification, essential for the human members of the team. Finally, in September 2021, we made it to Italy. We took the most advanced courses the school offered. Oakley excelled in them all. When we returned home, we turned our attention to the helicopter jump, in which the dogs leap from a hovering helicopter. Learning foundation skills, like loading and unloading dogs while the helicopter is running and flying with the helicopter doors on and off, took two years. A training facility in Florida worked with us to achieve the milestone of an actual jump. It was the culmination of four and a half years of training. Oakley loved every minute of it. She performed her first water rescue while she was still learning. We were running training exercises when a nearby swimmer had an asthma attack. Oakley swam over and towed her to safety. Her skills did not end at the
So We Took a Hike
everything. Kelby’s whole life is us. And if we did anything other than push forward and show her that her life is not changing, it would’ve been wrong. We came to terms with our loss and focused on the puppy. Everything was peaking at that point, when Kelby
Photo courtesy of Gabriele Mansi- GM Photography
was about a year old. She was preparing to enter the world of work, and we had to keep up with her training. Another thing that spurred us to continue was the social media community. We started hearing from Oakley’s followers on Facebook and Instagram and people who started water-rescue work because of her. Everyone was looking to us as to what’s next—what are you
As Oaks aged, I had mentally prepared myself that we might lose her early— Newfs have short lifespans and as a working dog, I knew anything could happen at any time. So we got a new pup, Kelby. She came to live with us at 10 weeks old, when Oaks was around 5 1/2.
Missouri Pet Breeders Association | Page 46
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