“Her name is Neytiri. It’s the main female character from the movie, ‘Avatar.’ I used to have a male named Jake, which was the main male character.

“About a year ago, she was playing with my friend’s bigger dog when they nipped each other. It was just an accident, but she lost her eye. When it happened, Neytiri jumped up on my bed and just looked at me like she was sad. I knew it hurt, so I took her to the vet. They said it pierced the retina and they wouldn’t be able to save the eye, so we scheduled the surgery.

“At times now, she creeps up on the edges of things because she knows it’s not quite the same as it used to be. But she’s bounced back. She still loves to come out here to play and chase the squirrels. She doesn’t see them as well as she used to, but she manages pretty well.

“I’ve been divorced for about three years. I don’t know what I’d do without her. We live in a trailer at a little RV park, and she sleeps in the bed with me. Comes under the covers on my right side every night. She’s such a great companion.”

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“We had three senior dogs, and we lost all of them because they were just at that age. One of them, Pablo, was a medical response dog. I trained him because I have two brain aneurysms. I was having neurological events where I would lose vision and drop to the floor, have no balance, just projectile vomiting until my electrolytes would be depleted. So the last event was real serious. I fell at Lee College, and Pablo went through the whole building to find the one person who could help me. I ended up going to the ER. While the ambulance was coming, and they kept trying to talk to me on the phone and keep me alert, Pablo kept pulling at my hair if I wasn’t responsive. He knew it was a grave situation.

“I haven’t had problems in years. But I knew how useful a medical response dog could be, especially with David dealing with Parkinson’s. His gait is so deteriorated and falls are such an issue. We got Percy about six months ago. Within a week, we could tell that he had the temperament and the intelligence to be a medical response dog. He knows that David is frail, and he is constantly checking in. Where is he? Is he upright? He notices that David’s going to fall before David falls. So we immediately started training him. The goal is for him to pass the public access test. So not only can he help us at home, but also when we’re out and about. I’ve been training him with a lot of help from the regional trainer for PetSmart. I’m building on everything that she teaches me.

“I have a master of fine arts in creative writing, so I’m working on my own narrative about this whole thing. I think it’s very ironic that we’ve been training a dog to protect us in public when we’ve not been able to be in public because of the coronavirus pandemic. But he’s the one who gives us hope that we’re going to get out of here. We keep training every day with that goal in mind. And it’s funny. We always sing with our son, Alex, ‘Who Let the Dogs Out.’ And now we joke that we’re waiting for the World Health Organization — the WHO — to let us out.”

— Kathleen Sydnor (with David Whitcomb and Percy)

Kathleen and David are retired. She was an English and humanities instructor at Lee College for 25 years, and continues part-time teaching Humanities on the Go, a program she developed. He practiced law 25 years for the Department of the Treasury (Internal Revenue Service) and Department of Justice.

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“Because I’ve gotten a little bit older and it’s a little harder for me to get around, I don’t take in as many animals these days. We did just recently have someone offload a mother dog with seven puppies. We found a home for the puppies. We could not find a home for the mother dog, so I took her home with me. I plan to get her spayed and, hopefully, find her a permanent home.

“We do have a few other animals here at the store. We have a cat that showed up after Hurricane Harvey. We have chinchillas. We have a resident rabbit that all the kids like to come see. We had a parrot but it was sad, so we sent it to be with other parrots. Right now, I think that’s our animal base here.

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“We got her as a puppy, and she was a very bad little girl at first. The people we got her from would not even let her out of the car because they were afraid she’d get loose and run off. But we fell in love with her completely and brought her back home.

“About a week later, I realized something wasn’t quite right with her. She was like a child that no matter what you told her, she was kind of ignoring you. She never would respond to anything we asked her to do until she saw us. So one day I got out my boat horn, and everybody in this place came alive but her. That’s when I knew she was deaf.

“My granddaughter knows some sign language, so she taught me a few signs. We also looked on the internet and came up with our own little vocabulary, you might say, and started teaching her. Through structure and repetition, she picked it up pretty easily. But because she’s deaf and also has limited sight, she’s probably always going to be treat oriented.

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“I went to Texas State University for three years. But I wasn’t really decisive on what I was going to do, what major to stick with. I was in business, changed to psychology, and then I was going back to business when I decided to just drop out.

“College gave me a lot of anxiety that I don’t miss. Especially in the classroom. So I didn’t go to my classes a lot. I remember in one class, there was a girl I sat next to who was real ugly to me. I stopped going because I didn’t want to sit next to her anymore.

“When I was at home I’d get my work done and I’d study, but I just didn’t make it to class. That was a big problem because for a lot of classes, attendance affected your grade.

“But now that I have a job where I’m dealing with people so much, I’ve gotten over a lot of my anxiety. And this little pupper helps, too. She’s a good therapy dog. She’s excited every time she sees you. You get to come home to her every day, and she goes crazy for you. She gets so excited that sometimes she pees herself a little. It’s cute in a way, but it’s mostly annoying.”

— Michael Roosa

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“My roommate has two little dogs that are elderly, but I’ve been wanting one of my own. Once I started looking, I didn’t really see anything that caught my eye.

“Then a coworker and I were leaving the Pasadena Animal Shelter, literally walking out the door, when this nice couple was dropping her off. They told me the story of how they had found her in Seabrook, as a stray dog just roaming around. When I saw her I thought, wow, she just may be the one.

“My coworker suggested that since they picked her up in Seabrook, why not call her Brooksea? I did, and it stuck.”

— Nate Holt

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“I have severe anxiety and depression. I’ve had anxiety for most of my life, and then I had this really bad breakup. I also was feeling a lot of stress about finishing in the top 10 of my class.

“I was part of the IMPACT (Early College High School) program, and I was in seven classes. Out of the classes I was taking here (at Lee College), I ended up dropping all but two. In one of those I managed a C, and I got an incomplete in the other. It was just way too stressful. For some reason, the classroom setting really messed me up. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t do anything.

“Then the start of this semester was really, really difficult for me. But after I was prescribed a psychiatric service dog and Violet started coming to school with me, it’s made a big difference.

“We’ve had Violet for 10 years, so she’s seen me when I start getting anxious. When I take her to class, if there’s an extra chair, I pull it close and have her sit next to me. She just lies there and chills. Whenever she senses that I’m about to have an anxiety attack or start panicking, she’ll get my attention. She’ll nose my arm or put her paws up on the table. That helps pause me and bring me back.

“She’s still a service dog in training. We’re still working on her leash manners and getting her to settle down at times. But I don’t know what I’d do without her right now.”

— Therynn Ibert

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“He is diabetic and has to get shots every day. If I don’t do it, his legs start to get very shaky. He also has new eyes. He had surgery because of cataracts. But he is doing OK now. He is living a good life.

“We are people who love animals, but some people call me stupid for spending $3,000 to $4,000 on him. But I have to, you know? I love him. I cry for him sometimes because I tell him, you are better than a real person.”

— Carmen Lopez

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“We have a one-bedroom apartment with two dogs and four cats. Bo here is the newest.

“I was at a job site, and he was covered in diesel, mud, oil and sewage. I drove back out after work and picked him up, brought him home and cleaned him up.

“We had a cat already, but it was terrorizing us so we went back to the pound to get another one. Our other dog, Rosie, was sitting on the counter there in a cage; once I held her it was game over.

“Then my wife saw birds attacking a cat, so she picked up that one. And she saw another cat on Facebook, so we got that one, too. Our fourth cat just came up to our door and started crying.

“We don’t think of ourselves as an animal refuge, but it’s certainly turned into that. We have a very soft spot for animals.”

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