Man's Best Friend

My friend, Davis Hawn, has a dog named Booster.  He's a Labrador Retriever and weighs close to 100 pounds.  Davis has other dogs too, but Booster was his first dog and surely is the most remarkable.

Years ago, when Davis went to retrieve his truck from an impound lot, he found a scared, hungry little dog quivering in the truck.  He took the pup home and decided to call him Booster.  That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship that has lasted until this day.  Both Davis and Booster's lives changed substantially for the better as each dedicated himself to the other.

Davis needed a service dog to help him with PTSD, and he began training Booster to do tasks like open doors, flip light switches, and retrieve items from the refrigerator.  He also learned to obey a variety tasks at Davis' voice commands.

Some extreme animal rights people don't approve of training animals and putting them to work, but the case of service dogs, helping human companions seems to me to be a job for which dogs have naturally evolved.  Years ago, one misguided acquaintance wouldn't neuter her dog because "they deserve to have a good sex life".  Pretty silly, I think.  Fortunately for Booster, Davis had a more realistic and enlightened concept of a good relationship between a man and his dog.

Davis' quest for the right relationship with Booster led him to Bergin University in California where he learned to train service dogs.  He persisted at Bergin until he graduated with a Master's Degree last year.  Today he is funding scholarships for young students to attend Bergin.  Included among his scholarship recipients are two young friends from Cuba.

Now I should explain that Davis is a frequent traveler to many parts of the world.  Booster often goes with Davis on his foreign trips, so he also is well traveled.  He's been to Cuba and South East Asia as well as on cruise ships.  Lucky for Booster that by law, service dogs can travel in the passenger cabin of airliners.  (The picture shows Booster with a group of Thai young people.)   I first saw Booster in Orlando at an HSUS Expo convention for animal shelter operators.  He was easy to spot as only a handful of dogs came to Expo that year.

Davis needs little encouragement to put Booster through his paces.  The dog won't eat until given permission from Davis.  He carried his toy through all three days of the convention.  Davis always has time to show off Booster's skills to reporters, and, as a result, he has been featured in newspapers and magazines, and once he was featured in the Bahamas Air seat pocket magazine.

Since Booster entered Davis' life, Davis added several other dogs to his family.  Fidelity, a rescue from the streets of Havana, was the subject of one of my earlier blogs.  Al Anon, another yellow lab, is Booster's son and has been trained to do most of the tasks Booster can do.

This week, Davis and Booster have begun a new phase of their bond.  Booster began to show problems when chewing, and then a lump was discovered on the top of his skull.  Davis had him to the best vets, and it appears the lump involves the skull itself and occupies some space inside the brain cavity.  He's had cath scans and pathology tests, and all the results aren't in yet as I write this.

Booster's future is uncertain as I write this.  Davis is committed to knowing all he can about Booster's condition and prognosis.  What he knows now is the growth is a squamous cell carcinoma, and more test results are due in a few days.  Whatever fate befalls Booster, he has had a remarkable life from the time Davis found a shivering puppy in an old truck all the way through to today.

Booster and Davis's story demonstrates certainly that dogs are man's best friend, and Davis and his dog are fine examples of the bond that weds our two species together.

Les Inglis