We got shoes for Braden's autism service dog. That's a big deal and I now think that every service animal should have them. I'll explain why in a minute. But first I'll point out that we don't put the shoes on the dog for attention. The shoes are not intended to draw people's eyes to the lovely brown pooch at my side. Why is she at my side? Because my son isn't ready to walk her in public places yet, and at this point he'd prefer not to be strapped with that responsibility. He wants me to walk her, though I sometimes convince him to do it. Now, onto the shoes.

Follow up:

If you recall, my son's service dog (in training) is Lucy, an 80 pound chocolate lab. And Braden absolutely loves Lucy. He talks about her all the time to the point that it drives us nuts. "Where did Lucy go?", he asks when he knows exactly where she is. She's at home. If we go out to ride our bikes Lucy stays behind and Braden knows it.

I had been thinking about shoes for Lucy for quite a while. I wanted some for her because she goes out with us quite a bit and the shoes would protect her feet from foxtails, glass, and hot concrete during Northern California's 110 degree summer days. We could take her out on wet winter days and still let her back into the house as well. But also, when we take her on escalators I wouldn't worry so much about the fur on her feet getting caught or yanked. As far as I know that's never happened, but for some reason it's a thought in the back of my mind every time we take her up and down escalators. Call me crazy.

I had shopped online and looked at dog shoes. It's difficult to buy dog shoes online. Which ones should I get? What SIZE are Lucy's feet? Does she wear an adult 9.5 or a puppy 16? Shoot - I had no idea. I never bought shoes for a dog before! But most dog shoes aren't cheap. The one time I stumbled upon cheap dog shoes was in a large sporting goods store. It was the middle of water fowl season I was told. $9.99 for four shoes. What a deal! All they had was camouflage, and I was fine with that. I measured her feet in the store and we looked for her size, medium. But they didn't have any mediums left and neither did any store within a 5-hour drive. At the beginning of water fowl season hunters buy up dog shoes like crazy and, wouldn't you know it, Lucy had a popular foot size. PLUS, her breed is commonly used for hunting. Lucy's a natural bird dog. No shoes that day. Lucy's tootsie's would have to wait.

But her tootsie's wouldn't have to wait long. A dear friend of ours, Tasha, had a German Shepherd that she regrettably had to put down. I guess one day while she was visiting with my wife they somehow got onto a conversation about her dog and that conversation evolved into talk about dog shoes. Tasha had purchased nice red dog shoes from REI for her dear lost Naomi. Tasha offered the shoes to us for use with Lucy.

So Lucy now has ruby red dog booties on loan. We are thankful to Tasha for loaning them to us. Lucy has got lots of use out of them already. She dons her doggy booties almost every time we take her out.

I'm usually the one who holds onto Lucy's leash whether we be on a walk around the block or in Walmart. And I noticed quickly that other people notice quickly that Lucy is wearing shoes. She got plenty of attention before, but now people talk about her 2 to 3 times as much! Sometimes they talk to me, sometimes they talk around me about the dog.

I gotta admit, it drives me crazy. I'm not an attention seeker. You'd think our son would garner plenty of attention with his 'special kid noises' and awkward behavior in public. But people don't know how to respond to children with special needs so they ignore it. That seems to be what people do when they don't know how to respond to something. Pretend it's not there. Pretend my son is normal.

Lucy's a dog. She's a dog with bright red doggy booties and people aren't bashful about responding to that. If it's not children pointing it out to their parents, then it's parents pointing it out to their children. And if there's no children then it's people mentioning to me how much they love the dog shoes and how beautiful Lucy is. I'm very glad Lucy has the shoes. And I'm always cordial to the people, if not a bit short with them. I'm also very thankful to Tasha. And I'm especially thankful that she didn't purchase pink shoes with rhinestones all over them!

How I wish Tasha had bought camouflage hunting shoes. Or a nice quartet of chocolate brown shoes that perfectly match Lucy's fur. A little wishful thinking never hurt. Either way, the shoes and the dog are serving a great purpose! Thank you, Tasha! (We dedicate this blog post to Naomi)