Albert the poodle to the rescue

To Penny Gross, the simple act of standing up could be life threatening.

The elementary school special education teacher suffers from a rare disease that causes her to pass out without warning. Called dysautonomia, the disease leads to drastic drops in blood pressure causing syncope, or fainting.

First diagnosed eight years ago, Gross has kept her condition in check with medication, but more recently that changed. Over the past two years, the disease began causing more severe problems; she now suffers from potentially fatal heart rhythms, extreme fatigue, muscle and joint pain and headaches, not to mention numerous injuries from falling to the floor with no warning.

Various doctors have administered a battery of tests to determine why she’s having a sudden increase in symptoms with very little new information. In addition, she has developed an extreme loss of potassium; because her body does not retain it, she now undergoes daily four-hour infusions.

Albert to the rescue

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, and his name is Albert, a 2-year-old black standard poodle who does miraculous things. As a cardiac-alert dog, he will sense when Penny is about to have a fainting episode and alert her to sit or lie down immediately, preventing the attack.

Right now, she is not sure how Albert is able to do what he does. “I know for sure I can’t sense it,” she said.  “He will alert me to changes I’m not able to detect with enough time for me to sit down because it only happens when I’m standing.”

Under the worse case scenario, Penny said, if she still passes out, Albert would be able to get under her to help lower her safely to the ground.

Everyday activities most of us take for granted are out of the question for Gross. Exercise and even standing in line for food or events could act as triggers. But through her ordeal, she has been able to teach; she is currently in her fourth year teaching elementary special education students at Georgetown Elementary School. She has taught for 17 years, moving to Long Neck from New Jersey eight years ago.

She and her husband, Josh, and their two daughters, Sydney, 10, and Jacklynn, 2, live in Long Neck. She said her entire family, including her mother, Jean Vareha, is very supportive and understanding.

Gross became aware something was wrong eight years ago when she passed out while driving on Route 1 and ended up in the median. Fortunately, she was not hurt. “I thought that I fell asleep,” she said. Over the next two weeks, she passed out several more times. That’s when doctors diagnosed her problem as dysautonomia.

The irony of the disease is that the only way her body can correct its imbalance is the act of passing out. Two years ago, doctors inserted a pacemaker in her chest and now doctors want to add a defibrillator, but they have to find out why she can’t retain potassium first.

Gross says a communication problem exists between her brain and heart.

Training with dog starts soon

Starting Saturday, Oct. 15, she will start an intensive three-week training program as part of the Canine Partners for Life program in Cochranville, Pa. During 20 days of training, she will take a variety of classes in dog care, obedience and her legal rights. Field trips are also an important part of training. The final exam will be a train ride into downtown Philadelphia and a visit to a busy shopping area, said Partners for Life Executive Director Darlene Sullivan.

During her first visit to Partners for Life, Gross said, she walked into a room filled with service dogs, and nearly all were some sort of Labrador, the most common breed of service dogs.

But she looked over in the corner and saw a massive black poodle and said she was surprised because she never anticipated that poodles were service dogs. She admits she was hoping that it wasn’t her dog, but when they made eye contact that all changed. “We had such a bond from that first meeting,” she said.

Adding training and costs associated with raising the dog, each service dog costs about $24,000. Penny has been charged with raising $5,000 to help defer part of the costs. She held several benefit events over the past few months to raise funds.

Canine Partners For Life, a nonprofit organization, has placed more than 400 service dogs in 40 states. The organization places full-service dogs, seizure-alert dogs, home companion dogs and residential companion dogs to assist people as young as 12 years old with a wide range of disabilities.

The organization is one of a handful of groups worldwide that place seizure-alert dogs. The amazing dogs are sometimes able to detect an upcoming seizure up to an hour in advance.

Even after training and working with seizure and cardiac-alert dogs for 18 years, trainers and staff at Canine Partners for Life are not 100 percent sure how the dogs do what they do.

“We think it’s their keen sense of smell that alerts them to electrical and chemical changes in a person’s body,” Sullivan said. “And, yes, some can do and some can’t.”

Albert was selected for the program as a puppy when an evaluation showed he had the temperament to be a service dog. It wasn’t long before trainers also discovered he had the ability to sense seizures.

Sullivan said Albert will be able to help Gross with walking and use his retrieval skills to assist her with everyday chores such as shopping and doing laundry.

“Some people might be surprised to see a poodle doing all of this, but they do fantastic service work,” Sullivan said.