13/10 LSD - a great way to meet friends!

Life takes many twists and turns that changes your direction without you planning it. Doors open, new people come into your life, and enrich it adding another layer to your perceptions. I love having friends from so many different places, those who know your past, and have seen you after ten tequila slammers, and those who are new and see you a little older and wiser, and you can pretend you have lived a squeaky clean life. A Smörgåsbord (can't think why spell check doesn't like that word?) of friends for all occasions.  And over the last few weeks, a new door has opened and I have met a number of interesting people.

Support Dogs is located way way away on the other side of the Pennines - practically another country to us Lancastrians. So when we came home with Lucie, the first autism assistance dog in Lancashire it did seem at first we were out on a limb here. After asking Support Dogs, I was put in touch with other assistance dog users in the area, from different assistance programmes. We have since met up, and started going for the occasional dog walk and coffee. We have aptly nicknamed our new ad hoc group - The Lancashire Support Dog Group - The LSD Group - a name which for obvious reasons will have to be changed...though for a mild sniggering we will keep it for a couple of weeks and see who else joins us on the walks ?!

Anyway, for now our little satellite gang consists of three people, and it has been great to meet up and share stories. You realise the world of owning an assistance dog - the truth of it - not the perception so many people have, can sometimes be remote as it is unusual. So when we get together we are just gabbling sharing our experiences, high and lows, tips and just about anything. Whether we are discussing our various vets, and how well they understand working dogs, talking dog diet, training tips, or places we have had successes or failures visiting in our area, there is so much to share. So here I have a new group of friends, and a door open because of Lucie.

I hope in time the group can grow and other people in our area can join us for a walk who have assistance dogs. Maybe we can even go further and fundraise or raise awareness of the roles of assistance dogs, who knows. Given I haven't even passed my test yet I won't jump ahead, and with my life I am always reluctant to take on too much, but it seems there are some people out there I would never have met on my usual path who have very different lives to me, and yet we all have one thing in common which presents both opportunities - whether that is emotional support, a shared interest in the charity we all owe so much to, or just simply fun and friendship, it seems worth exploring.  So we will see what unfolds, and who else lives nearby who may want to come and experience LSD without the side effects. 

So here is a picture of Lucie with her two new friends, Billy and Sparky, from the disability assistance programme.  It is great to seem them all have a good run out together and let their hair down...