A canine-do attitude drives 2-legged dog

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KUSA - Among Tami Skinner's three Shelties, it's easy to pick out the youngest. He's not just the smallest or the one knocked down by his brothers as they're playing catch in her backyard, but 3-year-old Dare has a more obvious distinction.

He only has two legs. A front paw and a back paw which are both located on his right side.

"People ask me all the time how does he walk?" said Skinner. "He just walks. He just goes because nobody's told him he can't."

Skinner likes to tell people that Dare now stands for Dare-devil. However, the Colorado Sheltie Rescue that saved him wanted to dare people to see his face and hear his story before they would deny the reality behind the kind of puppy mills where he was born.

His back left leg was chewed off less than a week after he was born and his front left leg was caught in a cage, fractured in multiple places, and dislocated at the elbow. After receiving no medical treatment for weeks, the breeder gave him up because no one would buy him.

"I can't even imagine how much pain he was in," Skinner said. "(Yet), he has the attitude, I can do anything (other dogs) can do... He has a spirit you cannot deny."

From the moment she adopted him, Skinner knew Dare's purpose transcended simply playing with a tennis ball and that her obligation to him transcended carrying him outside to go to the bathroom. They became an animal therapy team through the American Humane Association and travel the metro area to bring support, comfort and inspiration.

At the King Adult Day Enrichment Program, Rochelle Rotruck dropped the pottery clay she was kneading to help her joints stiffened by multiple sclerosis to embrace her "grand baby." He visits the Denver facility once a week.

"He gives you an incentive to try and do better no matter your disability," Rotruck said holding Dare on her lap. "Like the day I was feeling sorry for myself because of my (joints) and then, Dare came in and I forgot all about it."

Skinner takes him every other week to the Fletcher-Miller School in Jefferson County for special needs children. They read to the class, Dare sits on their lap, and when he starts licking them, there's not a frown to be found.

"He's just like them. He accepts them for who they are and doesn't treat them any differently because of their disabilities," Skinner said.

And once a month, he visits an amputee clinic at Presbyterian St. Luke's where members share stories surrounding the loss of an arm or leg.

"A lot of times, we can accomplish more than we thought we could," said Dr. Howard Balan, a psychologist who facilitates the group. "(Dare) tried and tries and tries, not knowing he should stop trying. I doubt Dare has these obstacles in his own mind while we human(s), we can put these obstacles right in front of us."

Skinner says that is the overall message Dare can share: in a world where there are all sorts of reasons to complain about our lot in life and stress about trying to solve our problems, if a two-legged dog can figure it out and live a happy life, so too can we.

"I look at him and think, nothing I have ever experienced in life, ever, has met up with what he has experienced in life," she said. "And he's happy, wrestling, playing with his brothers like nothing's wrong, so why am I being a sourpuss?

"Get on with life, enjoy it. You only get one."