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Canine Support Team and me – Personal Story of Dr. Yanoschik

Canine Support Team and me – my story

by James D. Yanoschik, DDS

US Navy 101118-F-5586B-144 Marine Sgt. Brian J...

What is the best thing being involved with the puppies does for me?

1.  Love.

Puppies are examples of unconditional love.  No matter what kind of day I am having, when I walk through the door, that tail is wagging and they are jumping up and down – just so happy to see me.  My problems melt away when I take the dog in my arms and they start to lick me.  Have you ever heard the laughing of a young child being caressed by the licks of a puppy?  You just smiled to yourself didn’t you?  That is who I become again too.

2.  Community.  

I enjoy is that I get to be around people that want to help other people.  

My wife and I have found some wonderful friends through the CST puppy raising programs. We have outings called “Yappy hours”  and visit various training locations throughout Southern California. 

3.  Me.

When I get into these situation where I volunteer, I wonder who really gets more out of these situations?  The person being helped or me?  I find that I feel better when I help my fellow-man sometimes in small ways and others in big ways.  But in a self-care way, I help others to help myself.

4.  Saving Dogs and People.

This organization has partnered with breeders and animal shelters to recognize the temperament in puppies that would make a good service dog.  When these puppies reach 14 to 18 months they are put into the Prison Pup program at the Women’s Prison in Chino, CA for their advanced training to become full fledged service dogs.  To date, any prisoner that has been involved in the Prison Pup program that got out of prison, has not re-offended.

My wife and I are now raising our second puppy in the program.

It hard to give up the puppy.  But what makes the transition easier is that we have met, in person, folks that have benefited from the service dogs.  For example, I met a young veteran who said that he has called the suicide hotline several times and made plans for his “transition” into the next life.  Fortunately, however, he got matched up with a service dog that helped him want to live again.  Another example is a mother who said that she saw a distinct change in her child since they got a service dog from CST.  These people are now able to have relationships and live.

Please get involved. Become a puppy raiser to a service dog. 

James D. Yanoschik, DDS

Dentist and Puppy Raiser

A little about Canine Support Teams (www.CanineSupportTeams.org).

Their goal is to provide service dogs for disabilities other than blindness.  This organization has partnered with breeders and animal shelters to recognize the temperament in puppies that would make a good service dog.  When these puppies reach 14 to 18 months they are put into the Prison Pup program at the Women’s Prison in Chino, CA for their advanced training to become full fledged service dogs.  To date, any prisoner that has been involved in the Prison Pup program that got out of prison, has not re-offended.

The program is lacking is puppy raisers.  Our job as a puppy raiser is to train the puppy with basic command skills, and to socialize them to various situations and environments that they may come into contact with in the course of a normal day.

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Serving Others May Not Have As Much To Do With Giving As You Thought

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Self-Care Tip – To be our own friend, be accountable for the service we do.

Bree was someone who was into details.  The moment of now was her reality.  She didn’t naturally consider the, “What if’s,” of tomorrows – but she did for the now.  And in her moments, if she slowed her day down so we could see all the threads individually weaving themselves together, we would see her doing lots of things.  Whirr.  She was busy.

I am a giver.  I know that I give all the time.  And I don’t get much from others.

Bree states she wasn’t getting much.  Giving, yes.  Getting, no.  Hm.  Let’s look at the threads that she spins and weaves.  Is this true?

Question:  Using the biopsychosocial model, what are the

things that Bree, or you, might be getting from giving?  Break it down! 

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Go Towards Your Pain to Relieve It

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Self-Care #197 – Go where your pain is to prepare for what happens badly in life.

Yesterday we talked about the power of loss, grief and pain not being one that can take away the potential of life.

Carl appreciated the idea that “scripted cue cards” with platitudes on them to read off for ourselves or for others when something bad happens – “Good comes out of bad,” “I know what you feel like,” and so on – is nothing anyone wants.  His comment included, in true Carl-style, a great question:

But what else can we say to show respectful empathy?

Goodness.  For crying out loud, we aren’t a bunch of calloused puff heads who don’t care or who don’t have a clue when someone is suffering!  We’ve all asked this question and wanted to help.  We’ve wanted to connect, to serve, to answer Carl’s question when we are in or come into the presence of pain.

In self-care, we can’t help others if we don’t help ourselves first.  We can’t give what we don’t have.  Airplane crashing, put your oxygen on before your babies.  Can’t withdraw if the bank account is empty….  We take care of ourselves and find that we can serve others more as a result.  It’s the same way in grief.  If we don’t go where our own pain is in life, if we aren’t present with our life journey, if we don’t fight hard for who we are, it is very hard to know how to answer this question.

There’s something to say about doing the work before the trouble comes and then when it comes, use it to prepare for more.  I love Ecclesiastes 12 which tells us in Solomon’s depressed and yet feisty words,

Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them”—

Solomon was talking about self-care here.  Holding us responsible at the elemental level to use the time we have before trouble comes, so that when it comes, we have a way of answering.

Carl gave his own answer,

…live life on life’s terms like it or not.  If we allow Jesus to embrace us and comfort us it will fortify us through life’s unfortunate tragedies.

Question:  What is your answer to Carl’s question?  Please tell me your story.

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“You” Are The Best Gift

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Self-Care Tip #123 <–> Take care of yourself.

Before I was found by my man, my brother Vance Johnson used to tell me, “Become the woman whom the kind of man you hope to marry some day would want.”  It was one more thing that helped keep my focus off of searching for boyfun-friends and on to living my life.

Of course it doesn’t end when we get what we want.  When we stop growing, we stop living – as Sarah said in the blog-post, “You Are Enough.”  Regardless of where we are in life, we are responsible for being the person that the people we want in our life want to be with.

Many of us deteriorate under the guise of service, employment, obligation, parenting, care-giving or whatever reason.  We neglect ourselves and then give that battered up self to our hopes and to the people we love.

Don’t be misled.  If asked, those very people we are serving would say, “Just take care of yourself.”  If you don’t believe it, reverse it.  What do you want to say to the over-extended people you love?

Jennifer who is a stay at home mom, tells me that she feels so guilty when she takes time to go for a run.  She laughs, saying her husband wants her to go.  He comes home and tells her, “Go!  I’ll watch the kids.”  Yet she still feels bad.  She thinks about her husband’s long day at work and the kids moods, their needs, what she could do for them, and she can barely force herself to leave.  Once she does, she says she always feels great about herself and them, and comes home having more than she did before to offer.

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Taking care of ourselves, is giving the best gift to the people we love.  “Me.”  Taking care of ourselves might be the most selfless thing we could do.  It keeps us connected to our life journey, which by definition includes keeping us connected to the very people we love.

Keep on!

Question:  Where are you in your journey?  Taking care of yourself, connected, disconnected?  How does it affect those you love?  Please tell me your story.

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Connect With Others to Get Friendly With Yourself

Self-Care Tip #81 – Connect with others.  Be a friend to yourself.

So you have bought into the famous, “You are not alone” stock.  After 2 months on psychotropics (medications for emotional illness,) you finally have an interest in people.  You are at least a little motivated and less afraid of things that move.  You don’t feel like you are the reason for original sin and more often than not, you think happiness might be more than what shopping can offer.  What is this strange and unfamiliar sensation?  And what to do with it?

It is time to connect.  Many of us get to the point where we no longer want to hide, we don’t hate ourselves, and we don’t hate others.  We get to the place of showing our under-belly just a little to the big wide world and are shocked that the only thing we feel is the wind as everyone is rushing by!  Just when we start wanting what we spent so much time hiding from, we seem to have forgotten how to connect with others.

It is no secret.  America is culturally impoverished.  We have little of cobblestone streets to meander down, dressed in clean clothes after a days work, checking up on neighbors and gossip.  We have few degrees of activity between full throttle and dead/no heart beat.   Come now!  How to connect in a world where our parents expected us to pay rent when we turned 18years old?

If you find yourself in something of this situation try on one of these basic tools and see what fits.  You can’t expect them all to.  So if you strike out a few times, keep on!

1.  Volunteer – for example, and in no particular order…

2.  Meetup.com – an awesome site to find people interested in what you are interested in.  e.g. book clubs, skiing, small business, Italian

3.  Support groups

4.  Write!  Although this at first thought may appear isolating, it is not necessarily.

  • Blog!  🙂
  • Journal

5.  Toastmasters

There is so much more.  Please let me know your thoughts and I’ll keep adding to this list!

Self-Care Tip #81 – Connect with others.  Be a friend to yourself.