Euro Puppy BLOG

In 1991, Allen Parton was a Chief Petty Officer serving in the Royal Navy during the Gulf War.
He had a very promising military career ahead of him and a wife and two children at home in
Portsmouth. Then a tragic war time incident changed his life completely.

Allen suffered a severe head injury which left him with considerable physical and emotional trauma. It wiped out his memories and left him unable to walk, speak or write. He couldn’t even remember getting married or the birth of his children. He spent the next five years in hospital, struggling to come to terms with his disabilities. He had lost the ability to feel any emotions, not knowing how to love, laugh or even cry. He became very introverted, his confidence was shattered
and he could not see any future. He was so miserable and depressed that he even tried to commit
suicide. As a result, his relationship with his wife Sandra and his children became strained

Then ten years ago Allen was partnered with Endal, a yellow Labrador part trained by Canine Partners. Since then, Allen’s confidence has returned to such an extent that he cannot stop talking about how much Endal has transformed his life. Endal has helped to save Allen’s marriage and to rebuild a relationship with his children. He has become independent and Sandra no longer has to be on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, allowing her the freedom and peace of mind to live her own life again.
Not only can Endal respond to over one hundred commands but he can also problem solve. One day when Allen was struggling to reach up to withdraw money from a cashpoint machine, Endal instinctively jumped up, took the money and card in his mouth and passed it to Allen. On another occasion, Endal demonstrated his ability to react in an emergency. When visiting Crufts in 2001, Allen was knocked out of his wheelchair by a speeding car and left unconscious in a car park. The driver was in a deep state of shock, so Endal took charge and pulled Allen into the recovery position, covered him with a blanket and fetched his mobile phone. Getting no response Endal then left Allen’s side and went to a near by hotel and raised the alarm.

Endal can also respond to sign language – when Allen cannot remember the word for items such as hat, gloves and razor, he makes signs with his hands, such as patting his head. Endal instinctively knows that he needs his hat and promptly fetches it!

Allen is now an incredible ambassador for Canine Partners. He is also a Trustee of the charity, working tirelessly to encourage publicity about Endal’s skill and the tremendous amount of work and dedication that goes into training other Canine Partners like him. Over three hundred and twenty camera crews from all over the world have filmed Allen and Endal, articles about the duo too numerous to count up. Not being content with being the first dog to fly the London eye, Endal was also the first dog to fly in the cabin of a British Airways plane from Heathrow to Manchester which was filmed for the BBC’s Airport programme.

This amazing dog has unsurprisingly won several major awards for his amazing talents and devotion to duty. He was voted “Dog of the Millennium” by readers of Dogs Today, he was the overall winner of the Golden Bonio award 2002, voted assistance dog of the year 2001, 2002, 2003 and he has been uniquely given two human life saving awards. He also claims the “UK’s Coolest Canine” amongst his titles and a prestigious Golden Bone award. He was awarded BBC Blue Peter’s highest honour, a Gold Blue Peter Badge and in August 2004, at the Wag and Bone show, he was presented with a unique “life time achievement award” previously only given to humans. Though his award of the “PDSA Gold medal”, the peace time version of Dicken Medal, for his bravery and devotion to duty( the equivalent of the animal George Cross) has to be is his most significant award and recognition of his working career. Endal was one of five Hero Dogs presented to the world’s media at Crufts 2005.

Allen could barely say “hello” a few years ago but now he is an eloquent speaker. His words express just how much Endal has turned his life around. “Endal never judges me or turns away because of my condition. His love is un-conditional and he is helping me become more tolerant in life. Every day we learn another way in which we can work together as a team. There seems to be no limits to what we can achieve together!”

Posted by Allen and Endal at Friday, July 25, 2008 07:43:29

PURE GOLD (part one)

When Endal, a quiet, unassuming yellow Labrador, won PDSA’s Gold Medal in 2003, it was another remarkable episode in a remarkable life. We tell his story here and that of the man whose world he helped
to transform.
On a late autumn day in 2002, a Labrador, smart in a
purple jacket, his intelligence shining through in his
bright-eyed alertness, stood attentively beside a man in a wheelchair. Before them a ceremony was taking place. The assembled guests were told how, after the man had been knocked from his wheelchair by a reversing car, the dog rolled his companion’s unconscious form into the recovery position, draped a blanket over him, nudged his mobile phone close to his face and then went to fetch help. Actions that many people might not have had the composure and the calm sense of purpose to carry out.
Afterwards, HRH Princess Alexandra presented the Labrador with the PDSA’s Gold Medal, awarded to animals that have shown outstanding devotion to their duties in time of peace. For his astonishing response to the accident, he became one of only three dogs to receive the Medal since its introduction. The dog’s name was Endal; his companion was Allen Parton. What had brought them together, and what had brought them to this ceremony, were a series of events that were as despairing as, eventually, they were hope-filled.

A lifetime lost
When Allen Parton, a weapons electronics officer in the Royal Navy, waved goodbye to his wife, Sandra, and their two children, Liam and Zoe, he was also bidding farewell to life as he had known it. It was 1991, and Allen was heading out to the Gulf War. He was, of course, fully aware of the dangers that lay ahead; but he was equally sure that experience and good fortune would see him return home untouched and unharmed.
Allen was wrong; Allen got unlucky. A month after he arrived, his military car was wrecked in an accident and Allen’s body with it. He woke six weeks later in a British military hospital, his right hand side devoid of feeling and his mind even number. His memory had been so horribly obliterated by the injuries he sustained that he was unable to recognise Sandra and had no recollection of his marriage or his children. He had to be introduced to his family. The simplest of words – bed, chair – deserted him. He spoke, if at all, as he remembered: in disjointed, meaningless fragments. Imprisoned by his wheelchair, trapped by his fumbling speech, and dispossessed of his own past, Allen saw no reason to have faith in the future. Twice he tried to take his own life.
After five years of hospitalisation and rehabilitation, Allen at last returned to his home in Hampshire, a stranger to the person he had once been, and raging at his fate. By his own admission, Allen was all too willing to share his anger and bitterness with those around him. "I refused to accept I was disabled and I’m ashamed to say I was pretty much horrible to everyone," he admitted.

An encounter
Sandra, who gave up her job as a nurse to care for Allen, had volunteered as a puppy walker for Canine Partners, an organisation that trains dogs to help disabled people enjoy a greater degree of independence. One morning, in the summer of 1997, the bus that had been due to ferry Allen to the day centre he attended failed to turn up. Rather than leave her husband to brood at home, Sandra took Allen with her to the Canine Partners training centre.
There Allen sat, his wheelchair parked in a corner, as self-conscious and withdrawn as he always was in public. Until, that is, his eye caught a young dog, resting from a training session. The dog wandered over to the wheelchair, accepted Allen’s offer of a welcoming pat on the head and promptly dived on to his lap. It was Endal. Allen’s life was about to emerge from night and into the sun.

A partnership is born
Everyone saw that there was a clear and instant bond between Endal and Allen, something instinctive and rooted in the way they interpreted each other’s needs. After a few more meetings between the two – it was difficult to tell who anticipated Allen’s visits to the training centre the more – Allen decided to apply to take Endal as an assistance dog. It was only while the forms were being completed that Allen understood and accepted the importance of the psychological step he was taking: "I had to describe my disabilities and this was the first time I had admitted there was something wrong with me. It was a cathartic experience. Until I met Endal, I was in the depths of despair. Now I suddenly saw a chink of light."

Posted by Allen and Endal at Friday, July 25, 2008 07:44:41

Pure Gold (Part two)

Life begins anew
With Allen still struggling as much with his word recollection as his mobility, Endal’s ability to read the sign language with which Allen was sometimes forced to communicate was central to their relationship. A pat on Allen’s head meant, and was understood as, "fetch my cap". A touch on Allen’s cheek and Endal was off to bring him his razor case. Hands held up? A second later Allen’s gloves appeared. ‘Tugs’ were added to everything – doors, cupboards, clothes drawers, the toilet seat – in the Parton house that needed opening or closing or lifting so that Endal could help Allen get dressed, wash and manage the domestic chores.
Endal was soon as adept at shopping as he was around the house. Allen simply issued the appropriate instructions from his wheelchair – cereal, soup, tins of tomatoes, bread – and Endal would unfailingly nose it from the shelf and drop it into the shopping basket. He even helped to pay. Once Allen had tapped in his PIN, Endal would gently retrieve the money and card from the cash dispenser.
The differences that Endal brought to Allen’s everyday world weren’t just practical, however impressive his abilities to sniff out a bargain at the supermarket. They were therapeutic too. Where five years of intensive speech coaching had seen little progress, Allen’s urge to talk to Endal mean that he was becoming ever more articulate, his vocabulary as broad as it was before the accident. Once Allen, embarrassed at his inability to remember words let alone names, would shy from social contact. Now Endal gave him the confidence to re-engage with the world that once had felt so alien and intimidating. "Endal provides a talking point," explained Allen. "People stroke and chat about him which helps me to socialise."
Perhaps most importantly of all, Endal restored Allen to his family, allowing him the emotional strength needed to rediscover and renew the bonds of human love. "Life will never be the same again but, thanks to Endal, Allen has a second chance," said Sandra. "As do we. The children lost their old dad but Endal has given them a new one." Recently, Allen and Sandra took their wedding vows again.

Fame
A dog as talented as Endal is a difficult secret to keep. His prowess at the cash machine was spotted by a journalist from a national newspaper. After that the media floodgates opened wide. Reporters and film crews from around the world have queued up to watch and marvel as Endal, wallet in mouth, picks up Allen’s prescription at the chemist’s or operates the electronic doors on a train.
What really threw the spotlight on Endal, however, was the story of the heroics for which he was awarded the PDSA’s Gold Medal. Invited to attend a stand at Crufts in 2001, the pair had been exercising in the car park afterwards when the vehicle, unseen by Allen until the last second, struck him and threw him from his wheelchair. Endal’s resolve and quiet control made headline news and won him that most prestigious of animal awards.

The future
Endal is now twelve years old. There will come a time when he will be too old to carry out his duties, however strong and faithful the urge to do so. When that happens, Allen will be there to look after him, repaying what he acknowledges to be an unrepayable debt.
The day in the car park that saw Endal save Allen’s life by grasping his coat and pulling him, unconscious, into the recovery position was truly remarkable. What is almost as remarkable is that Endal has been saving Allen’s life, precious piece by precious piece, each and every day, before and since.

Posted by Allen and Endal at Friday, July 25, 2008 07:45:27

Dear Allen and Endal,

Thank you for posting the whole story. The relation you have with Endal shows why dogs are people's best friend! What Endal has achieved, no human could do it.

Sincerely Yours,

Sandor

Posted by Sandor at Friday, July 25, 2008 08:00:05

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