When I was a very young child, I asked my father for a dog. Curious, he inquired what type of dog I wanted. My answer is as clear today as it was back then. I told him, with all the conviction I could muster, I wanted a big dog. Not long after, I received my first Great Dane puppy, and at seven, I got a second one. My father asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember I told him I wanted to be a doctor. He asked You want to be a veterinarian? I corrected him and said No, I want to be like Dr. Doolittle. At a very young age, I knew I wanted to speak with animals in order to help them.

Later in Life
When I was in college, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. This event changed my life. Dyslexia wasn't a negative problem, quite the contrary. I finally realised I wasn't dumb. I was told I was a non-linear thinker who reads and understands concepts in pictures, not words. I was also told I had an eidetic memory which would come in handy. The diagnosis made so much sense to me. Why am I telling you this? Because I was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of twenty-two.
 
Following the diagnosis, I was trained by a very wonderful woman named Rose who loved to Think Outside the Box. Her plan? Teach me word recognition. In essence, she would teach me to use one part of my brain to train the other part. My photographic memory would serve as a word recognition dictionary. Let me explain. When I write or read, I see the word tje but through word association, I learned that when I see tje, the real word should be spelled the. The program worked well, and my skills as a reader and writer improved dramatically. New words and a few select older words still pose a challenge, but overall, I can read and write at university level.
 
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
What does this have to do with dogs? Dyslexics tend to use one subject matter to interpret their understanding of the world. Without knowing it, I had picked dog behaviour. Dog language, because of it's non-verbal attributes, became my interpretative strategy. Today, when faced with a new idea, concept, problem, or information, I convert it to dog behaviour. If I can make sense of it in another visual form, I understand it immediately and my super memory helps me remember the information.
 
For me, canine behaviour isn't just a passion, it's a way of understanding life. It's my window into a world that often doesn't make any sense to me. Dogs allow me to communicate and express the millions of pictures that form in my head all at once. They're the reason I write these articles for you. Dogs have become my God, for they have taught me so much about life and my role in it. I think without animals by my side, I would have taken a very different path.
 
I've had a wonderfully amazing life filled with events I've created for myself. I'm not lucky, I'm determined. I work twice as hard as the average person to write this blog, but I do it because I believe if we share, we grow. I'm a passionate person, that's true, but most of all, I'm someone who enjoys seeing you: the reader, the client, the friend, the family, think and smile about the topic of my life that is canine behaviour. 

If you think you, or someone you know, might be dyslexic, please seek information and help.