CATH & BUDDY

by Michelle Ransom-Hughes, featuring Cath Phillips

(Alongside Radio, 2019)

Cathy

This can happen with people with PTSD where you can have a flashback, and then you can look at your dog, and realise your dog isn't doing anything different so the flashback is simply that: you're not there, that you are actually with your dog in the supermarket, or sitting on the couch with your dogs chewing on each other.

(Growling and laughter)

Michelle

Yeah, so that could work for any kind of psychosis, hallucinations?

Yeah - fugue states. Often the dog will bark.

How will it know what’s happening in your head?

Your smell is different. Your behaviour is different.

And they are the most minutest observers of our behaviour. There isn't anything that we do, that they don't know about.

That’s Cath Phillips.

Cath’s the founder of a charity called Minddog, which helps people with Psychiatric Assistance Dogs.

These dogs can be almost any breed, and they belong to all sorts of people too.

There are as many variations as there are minds and dogs.

But the whole MindDog thing started in Sydney twenty-something years ago, with a clever little dog, called Buddy.

Cath’s current dogs (who you just heard) are Ridgebacks, Clem and Winston,

And a black Manchester Terrier, she sometimes calls ‘rat dog’, but whose name is Spring.

At Cath’s bush property in mid-winter, when I recorded this interview

She leaves the door open so the dogs can roam in and out, wrestle around on the Persian rugs, and climb up and snore on the creaky leather couch if they want to.

All of which is to say - there will be some of the noise of a dog-filled home in this episode.

But you’re a dog person, so you’ll understand.

I’m Michelle Ransom-Hughes, this is Oh My Dog, and the story of Cath, Buddy and the MindDogs

Song: Oh My Dog Theme: Come To Me

I have had bipolar two all my life. But I’d never had a diagnosis until 1996.

Anyway, we'd always had dogs, I'd always had dogs as an adult.

I struggled for a long time. And then I realised that I was a lot more comfortable, and a lot less stressed, when I had my dogs with me.

Cath took this thought seriously, and began looking around for other people who felt the same way:

able to cope infinitely better with a dog by their side.

I came across a website called Barking Mad which was run by a woman who lived on the northern beaches in Sydney and she had a mental health disorder

and she talked about Psychiatric Assistance Dogs.

And I thought, “that's a really good idea. That's a great idea.”

Now unfortunately the website fell apart - it wasn’t anything.

I searched on google and I found the Psychiatric Service Dog Association in America which was established by a woman with bipolar two and three ridgebacks,

which was what I happened to have at the time.

Exactly the same?

Exactly the same.

They were really just kind of a research organisation I guess.

They didn't actually train or test dogs themselves, but they had a public access test on their website, which I downloaded.

And that is the certification process for

So I tried to find somebody who would test one of my dogs.

In Australia, a Public Access Test is the final step in having your dog certified.

It officially allows them to be with you at all times.

But first, a trainer has to check whether your dog is up to the gig.

Whether it sits under the table in cafes, Whether it doesn't poo in the wrong place.

So you kind of want... a good dog?

Yes, you want a good dog.

… all dogs are good aren't they?

Yes they are. They are good unless we fuck them up.

When she started chasing down this idea of having a Psychiatric Assistance Dog

Cath and her partner Sue, lived on Dangar Island.

Cath was building their house, and working as a visual artist.

They had two lovely ridgebacks. That was, until the fateful day... when Cath was in the Hornsby Chainsaw Shop.

I had my ute parked out the back and Puddle and Murphy were in it ,

And this woman came in and said, “Are those your ridgebacks?” Yes.

“Do you want some more?” No.

“Oh well, we’ve got these two and they’re really wonderful and they’re beautiful

And we can't have them anymore because we’re going to have another baby, and we just can’t have the dogs anymore, and they're only six months old and they’re just wonderful.

And here’s my phone number.”

Oh God.

So I went home and said to Sue,

“There's these two dogs and one’s a boy, and one’s a girl, and I think we should take the girl”.

And Sue said, “No we don't need any more dogs. no no no no no.

And anyway we’ll have to take them both”.

So... we took them both.

And Red was a big girl. She was beautiful. And Buddy was a runt, he was smaller than all of our other dogs.

But he was really smart.

And so because he was smaller, I chose him to be my assistance dog.

Because he would fit into spaces better and be less threatening to other people.

He was small but Buddy had a big personality.

Cath says, “he was always the first one — the first to eat the cats’ food, the first out of bed in the morning in case there was a snack somewhere, the first on the couch to watch the telly, the first to get under the blankets at night, the first off the boat and onto the beach.”

Cath eventually found a trainer to conduct Buddy’s Public Access Test: it was Mali, a former Guide Dog trainer from Canada.

So we met at North Sydney, and Buddy had never been to North Sydney before, and one of the things was, we had to use public transport.

And we'd never used public transport before.

Oh, except the Dangar Island ferry, which doesn't really count. And we went down the railway station, so he’d never been underground, in a big building like that.

He’d never been in a lift, but he went in the lift.

He had never been in that kind of noisy, hard surfaces, echoing environment before.

And that can be highly stressful for a dog.

Anyway, the train came in, never seen a train before, and trains are noisy and we had to get on it.

So I stood in the doorway.

I looked at him, he looked at me, we both looked at the train, he looked at me, and we got on.

And he was absolutely fine, except I asked him to sit and he did, but he wouldn't stay sitting because of the movement of the train.

So that was Buddy. He was a smart boy.

How could he have failed that test that day?

Oh, he could have reacted badly. He could have run away from the train, he could have refused to go on the lift, he could have barked at another dog on the street but happily we didn't see one, because he did.

And he wasn't the sort of dog that you would normally pick to be an assistance dog…But he worked for me.

Buddy became Cath’s Assistance Dog

Anywhere she wanted to be, they could now go together.

But just because a dog’s wearing the little yellow and blue jacket of an assistance dog, and is certified to go everywhere,

That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s fine with being everywhere… just yet

Assistance dogs have to do things like get on aeroplanes get on buses, get on trains, go to Westfield, go to the supermarket.

So what you have to do is train them to be comfortable in that environment, and that means teeny tiny steps.

Like, if your dog’s never been to a supermarket before… trolleys.

Trolleys can be big things and really scary things for dogs.

So you would take them to the outside of the supermarket, and maybe sit on a bench out there and let the dog see the trolleys and check out what’s going on.

Winnie good boy come here you’re a good dog - such a good dog.

So you do it in tiny increments and you reward the dog all the time, lots and lots and lots of treats.

So it comes to associate going to the supermarket with treats. Hey, good times!

Exactly what you do with a toddler.

Yes. not so different not so different from a toddler kids and dogs, same thing.

Having Buddy worked like a charm for Cath.

There were times when I was in such a bad state that I couldn't leave the house, and if I wanted to go out somewhere, Sue had to come home from work, get in the boat, come over and get me, and then we would go out. But with Buddy, I could do that. I could do it by myself.

Where did you take Buddy?

Oh, I used to take Buddy everywhere: bookshops, supermarket, my psych.

What did he do for you that allowed that to happen?

Well, because he was dog reactive, and I had to keep an eye on him, and I had to be aware of the environment around me. Because I had to see the other dog before he saw the dog, in order to stop him from doing bad things like barking and lunging. That takes you out of your head.

And having to focus, um, on things in the distance. Because, what happens to me, and I don't know if this happens to other people but it probably does, is, um, you can’t see.

I don't mean that you go blind, but you have such a small focus that, um, you can focus on two metres ahead of you, but you can't focus on anything else.

Is this when you’re having a bipolar episode?

Yes, when you’re, well Bipolar Twos don’t have the big florid Bipolar One episodes.

Yes but it’s when you're depressed, when you’re… (sigh) Yeah, it’s when you’re not functioning very well, or you miss your meds.

And so your world’s closed down, in your own head, and having a dog forces you to open back out, on behalf of the dog?

Yes, on behalf of the dog.

It’s really symbiotic.

Yes, yes it is!

And the dog does things for you. Like on the train he would sit with his head on my knee all the time. So that is grounding, that’s called grounding, he’s keeping me reassured.

He would just, just having his presence there, would reduce my anxiety.

My dentist once said that it’s like a security blanket on legs, but not trivialising it like that.

And it is. It’s… your dog makes you feel secure.

(Dogs growling)

The physical contact reduces anxiety as well.

The feeling of protection the dog gives you. And I don't mean protection in a guard dog sense,

The feeling of having something that's there for you, that's on your side no matter what, which doesn't get rid of your anxiety, but it mitigates it.

You wouldn’t need to touch him?

Yeah, yeah, I would - I’d often have my hand on him.

Except he was so small I would have to bend down to do it.

After making her way through the long process of getting Buddy accredited

people were urging Cath to share what she’d learned with others.

So, drawing on her experience with Mardi Gras, and other community bodies,

Cath held a fundraising dinner, she set up a board, and in 2011, launched MindDog.

Now you might be (as) confused - as I definitely have been,by the many different dogs with jobs.

Therapy dogs...support dogs... service dogs: what’s the go?

Well therapy dogs do amazing work in public settings... places like schools, hospitals, courtrooms.

But when an assistance dog is in public, they are partnered with just one handler.

And to qualify for an assistance dog - that person, the handler, must have a legally defined disability.

Since Buddy and all the other MindDogs are Psychiatric Assistance Dogs

I’m curious how dogs can be trained to alleviate something that’s for the most part, going on inside a person’s mind?

Ah well, that's the thing they're not.

This is why they have to be trained positively, and why they have to sleep with their handler,

and be with their handler as much as possible: because of the bond.

Because the dog is so deeply bonded with the handler.

The dog recognises the different states of the handler’s physiology, and recognises the handler’s need.

Now our dogs need to be independent thinkers, and they need to be able to make choices.

Because if you've got a handler who's having a meltdown somewhere, like in a supermarket or what have you, the dog has to be able to decide, make choices on that handler’s behalf.

So the dog has to say “Okay we've got a problem here. I need to do something, I think I’ll do this”.

Which usually means I think I will take her out of this situation. Or I think I will bark at her to bring her out of her fugue state.

Or I think I will lick her legs really vigorously ‘cause I’m a short dog and that's the easiest way for me to do this.

Or if it’s a big dog, I might jump up at her, put my paws on her; or get her out of here and get her somewhere where she can sit down, and I can, me being the dog, I can sit sit on her.

And that’s a thing called deep pressure stimulation. Where the dog, and big dogs do this as well, sit on top of you.

And so feeling pressure on your body can ground you, can bring you out of the state you’re in.

And our dogs need to be able to think to do that without being commanded.

So what we're doing is we are um, capitalising if you want on the dog's natural behaviours. Dogs will leave an area of stress.

Its handler is super-stressed by being in this area, so the dog leaves and takes the handler with them.

You might think this is all makes great sense.

But I know there is still a degree of skepticism out there around psychiatric assistance dogs.

Like a lot of things to do with mental health - it can be hard to get your head around something you can’t see.

And we mostly can’t see the job the mind dog is doing.

But you know what? You can’t see a pacemaker either.

There's a convention among assistance dog trainers, for physical assistance dogs, of things called ‘tasks’: where the dog is trained to do specific things. And that might be opening doors, or putting a card in the ATM, or stuff like that. Things which are quite complex tasks.

And when we first set up we were like, oh my god, we've got to have tasks. And so we would ask our handlers, our clients, what the dog does for you.

And they would have all sorts of answers like, he blocks me, um, he wakes me from night terrors.

All these different things that the dog would actually do for them.

And we started to realise they were natural dog behaviours that were organically developed through the relationship with the person.

So we don't call them tasks any more, we call them actions. And it's an action the dog take in response to a change in the handler’s physiology.

The law, and the law in Australia is the Disability Discrimination Act, makes no mention at all of tasks, no mention at all.

And it's a convention that has developed that you must have tasks, otherwise it's not a genuine assistance dog.

Well we would say that these dogs teach themselves organically developed mitigating actions.

Okay and that’s the definition of an assistance dog, isn’t it?

Yes. An assistance dog is one which is trained to alleviate the handler’s condition, whatever that condition may be. Our clients all have a mental health disorder of some kind.

So part of the application form has to be filled out by a medical practitioner, and that practitioner has to say, that their patient meets the definition of having a disability, under the act.

And we don't make any judgements on diagnosis. We’re not medical health professionals.

Venturing into public places means - there will be public. Do we all know by now not to interrupt a working dog? I think so.

But some people do use their assistance dog as a kind of icebreaker.

Some clients seek that kind of social interaction, because it’s the only way they can do it.

And so their often small dog will initiate the social interaction for them.

And then they start having conversations with people, they like that.

Lots of rewards in there, ‘cause there’s pats from the new person, there's good feelings from the handler. So it’s all self rewarding behaviour.

And it's entirely up to you whether you let people come and talk to you about your dog.

But for those who find it hard enough to venture out to the shops?

Who really just want to get their errands done and get home again?

What we say, if you don’t want contact, is just put your hands up in a stop motion, and turn away.

Because a lot of people will just ignore you, and want to interact with the dog.

And they ignore the vest, they ignore everything, They just want to pat the dog.

And we were at Mackay airport once and there was a supervisor and she came up to tell us we couldn't have a dog.

She then realised it was an assistance dog.

And she said, “Oh right and you're not supposed to interact with them are you? You’re not supposed to pat them.”

And the whole time she's patting the dog!

Patting, patting, patting, and that happens so often.

There is much more awareness, and it’s coming from kids.

Because somebody has taken their assistance dog to a school,

And you'll often hear kids telling their parents,

“Mummy we can't touch that dog that dog’s working “

It's an inescapable fact that we usually outlive our dogs.

Cath’s first assistant dog, dear Buddy,

had been trained using a choke chain by a dishonest trainer when he was still a puppy.

It damaged his throat, and shortened his life.

He died when he was 8, and I got him when he was 6 months.

I didn't understand what was happening to him with his throat, and his cough.

So I wasn't as sensitive to his needs as I should have been.

I just thought he was getting lazy.

What was he demonstrating?

Oh, he had laryngeal paralysis, which I don't know, and that was from the choke chain

which meant that his larynx wasn’t opening sufficiently for him to get enough oxygen.

And I thought he was getting lazy. And he wasn’t. He couldn't breathe.

Ah so he was slowing?

Yeah.

But I would take them out on the boat every day, and - ‘cause there were three of them

So they ran out everyday and I would take them out in the boat

And drop them on one part of the foreshore, and they would run through the bush,

and I would pick them up on another part of the foreshore.

Just for fun?

Yeah, for exercise.

Cool.

Yeah it was cool. And they would just leap on the bough of the boat and leap off,

and he was always the first one off and on, so when he started slowing down, that’s when I started to think...

‘Cause he wouldn't get out of the boat after a while, and I would make him get out of the boat,

which when I look back I think, how horrendous, how could I have done that?

But he… ah.

So we ended up at the super expensive vet hospital

And they stitched one side of his larynx to one side of his throat,

so that he could breathe again,

But that of course meant his larynx couldn't close

So he got pneumonia, which is what happens.

And we’d just come here, and I realized one day that he wanted to die.

‘Cause he went off in the garden and just lay down there, in an area where he wouldn't normally do that.

And so I picked him up (he weighed a bit), and we came up here.

All of us, all the dogs came up here, and I rang the local vet. And she came out and she got out of her ute, and she had his file in her hand, which was like, two inches thick.

And the first thing she said was, “Well you’ve really fought for him”.

And um, she put him to sleep.

(dogs snoring)

And that was Buddy. He was a great dog, he was a fantastic dog in the bush.

He’s got a big pile of rocks over in the chook paddock. In fact there are four big piles of rocks over in the chook paddock - that belong to dogs.

Although Kali, my second assistance dog, is up on top of the hill.

Why's that?

I didn't want to put her with the others, cause she was kind of different.

One she wasn't a ridgeback, she was a Labrador.

And, cause was a bomb detector dog, from the federal police, and apparently she wasn't that good. Apparently she would bond with her handler, and focus on her handler instead of focusing on the job.

Which made her a brilliant assistance dog, absolutely brilliant.

Cath’s looking for a new assistance dog. It's not easy.

Rat dog here, his name is Spring, he's very sweet and he’s seriously bonded with me but he’s never going to be my mind dog.

I have taken him out because I’m supposed to train him.

He’s good in lifts and good on stairs.

The only time he showed any stress was once on Macquarie Street once when it was raining and everyone had umbrellas.

He'd never seen an umbrella before so he was a little bit wary of that. But he’s very brave and very gutsy. He adores me, but it’s not going the other way.

What will become of him?

Oh he’s just going to live here and be a dog

(Dog noises)

No Clem! You know you’re not supposed to do that! Clem wants to be my mind dog.

She’s applying for the position

Yeah. But she's scared of shiny floors and terrified of lifts and stairs

Cause we don’t have any stairs

How many dogs all together now have you brought into the organisation?

1393 dogs

That’s incredible! How did you do so many?

It's the demand. All we have is a website.

That's a lot of people whose lives are dramatically different.

Yes. And they are dramatically different. The difference we see in people between the first public access test, and the second, is extraordinary, just extraordinary.

What sort of changes have you seen?

They're more confident. They're more relaxed.

They go out. They will be cleaner. Their home will be cleaner. Um, they will often have jobs that they didn't have before.

They will travel. They will have better relations with the people around them. They just transform.

It's genius and its simple. Dog people understand right away how this works.

There is a kelpie, not far from Sydney. Her handler is a late middle-aged woman.

And the woman woke up in the middle of the night with the dog jumping on her chest.

And she thought, “What do you want? What do you want?

Do you want to go outside? What’s the problem?”

And the dog doesn’t appear to want to do anything. This is not something this dog normally does.

And the dog does this four times - wakes her up from her sleep, by jumping on her chest.

And the fourth time, she realises that her speech is slurred.

And she goes into her husband and says, “Something’s wrong”.

So he calls the ambulance and she gets taken off to the hospital.

And the specialist says, “You have had a stroke. You shouldn’t be able to talk.

You shouldn't be able to walk. What happened?”

So she told him about her dog jumping on her chest.

And he basically said, “That dog saved your life. What was happening, when it jumped on your chest, was you took in a big breath of oxygen, which went to your brain, and your brain is a lot healthier than it should be”.

So normally a stroke would cause you to go unconscious? Did she make a recovery?

Yes, yes. She’s absolutely fine

(A lot of dog noise)

It's not dog dinner time.

Come on, dogs can go outside. Come on, come on dogs, good girl

Come on Clem, Clem. Good girl.

Not all the support given by assistance dogs is as clear cut as this,

But that a mind dog is so closely bonded to his person that he keeps her from going unconscious...

Well, that’s a perfect, tangible example of what Cath’s known all along:

Some of us simply need our dogs, to live.

Thank you so much Cath for sharing your story and thanks for everything you and the rest of the Minddog team do.

You can find out all about Minddog on their website.

Our website has links and photos and a transcript related to his episode,

and all our other episodes too.

That’s Oh My Dog podcast dot com

Oh My Dog is created, written and produced by me Michelle Ransom-Hughes,

Our deluxe sound designer, composer and mixer is the talented Seja Vogel.

And in just a second you’ll hear another of Seja’s love song for dogs.

Thanks for listening!

SONG : Going Under by Seja