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| Name: |
Madison
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Age: |
Seven years old
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| Gender: |
Female |
Breed: |
Beagle
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| Home: |
Madison, Alabama, USA |
Madison
brings smiles to many. She has been a therapy dog for five
years and is well known in our community through our local volunteer
animal assisted therapy organization, Therapy Partners, Inc.
She is also a FreeStyle dog - performing at nursing homes, the annual
HOTC (Huntsville Obedience Training Club) Dog Fair, and soon in a
national Freestyle competition. Madison is also quite photogenic. She
has appeared on a full magazine page of No' Ala in an article about
Therapy Partners, Inc, has graced a billboard for the HOTC Dog Fair
for the month of September 2013, among other photo/TV ops. But most of
all she is our personal therapy dog, and sweet fur-child.
We adopted Madison when she was ten weeks old from a breeder in
Fayetteville, TN. For years we talked about getting a dog, but our
lifestyle just wasn't right. Then my husband was diagnosed with severe
depression. I thought that a dog might be something that would help
him. At first, this backfired as he 'worried' about Madison - would
she ever be housebroken (yes, she trained early and is rock solid),
would she ever stop chewing (yes, as she left puppyhood and we learned
lots about positive dog training). They are truly bonded, and Madison
is definitely his "girl". :-)
Madison and I took many training classes (and still do). We started
with Puppy, Manners, Advanced Manners, Rally, Novice, etc. All of
those classes qualified and led us to Freestyle. We are very fortunate
to have Huntsville Obedience Training Club (HOTC) here and to be
members. They have dozens of different classes in most areas of dog
training. We never tried Agility - because of my knees, but we've
dabbled in most everything else. Frank and Madison have even tried
Nosework and Flyball.
Madison had to give up Flyball when she developed cataracts. She has
had the surgery and new lenses and sees perfectly again. There is a
pretty good size, experienced, Freestyle group at HOTC and we were
lucky to join in classes about four to five years ago, and continue
with classes and performing to date. We have been working on a
"Snoopy" routine for Freestyle to "Linus & Lucy" - you will recognize
this music on the Met Life commercials, and you see Madison on her
"Snoopy house" which we use for Freestyle performances.
Madison has a sweet, friendly, happy personality. She loves food and
is very easy to train. She learns behaviors sometimes faster than I
can teach them. She's big on giving hugs (leaning against people like
a cat), and loves to get hugs. She isn't a big kisser - but she does
kiss special people, like the Adult Day Care members that we visit at
the Huntsville/Madison County Senior Center through Therapy Partners,
Inc., a local volunteer organization that registers and certifies
animal teams who visit both local hospitals, rehab centers, nursing
homes, senior living facilities, work with at-risk second graders in a
reading program that usually increases their reading ability one to
two grades in one semester.
See more images of Madison!
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