Article 12: The Importance of Emotional Support Animals

When I was sixteen, I was dealing with a really bad case of mania. I battled my way through some of the worst days. I fought hard, but sometimes the universe has a way of kicking you in the teeth no matter what you do.

I visited with psychiatrists only. I didn’t have a therapist until I was knee deep in Bipolar I Disorder and drowning in thoughts and feelings. That was in 2009. The therapist was a much needed presence in my life. I don’t know where I would be without her. We worked on some serious issues and untangled many complicated knots in my brain.

There was something else missing in my life. For a very long time, there was a little void in my life and I didn’t know how to fill it. I frivolously spent money trying.

Let me back up a bit. In 2006, my great grandmother went into assisted living and couldn’t take her chihuahua, Charlie, with her. She held interviews to find him a suitable home, but no one was good enough for Charlie—until I was.

Charlie, Mom and I flew back home to Georgia from Louisiana. Charlie had found a new home! I know that chihuahuas are one man/woman dogs. They love one person best and tolerate everyone else. I wanted to be Charlie’s person so badly, and I soon became his favorite. My void was filled.

Charlie and I shared a special bond. When I gained weight, Charlie gained weight. When I dated boys he didn’t like, he chased them away. I went away to college and couldn’t take him. Every time I came home, Charlie behaved as though I had come back from the dead. When I went into the hospital, so did he. We could read each other’s energy. He became blind in his old age, but nothing stopped him.

Charlie died in 2016. I thought I would never love again.

Two years later, I was sitting on the couch with my soon to be husband, and said, “I would like to get a dog.” He thought I was kidding, but I actively began my search.

I was looking for a dog that I could train to be my emotional support animal. I discovered a litter of puppies at a nearby animal shelter, and after an exhausting application process, we brought home the only male puppy, and named him “Logan.” I named him Logan because I went to visit those puppies every day for a week before they allowed me to take one home. If you have watched a movie about mutants–particularly one with large claws that extend from his knuckles–you will understand that I named him after that character. He crawled on top of the other puppies to gain my attention, pulling at my braid and clawing me with nails in much need of a trim.

Finally, I brought Logan home. From a very young age, I taught him to ride in a backpack carrier so that he could travel undetected or fly in a plane more conveniently. He has also been riding on my shoulder since the very beginning of his life, and acting as a neck rest when we ride in the car.

Logan eats lunch at 2PM. I take my afternoon medication at that time. After he eats his lunch, he reminds me to take my medicine if I get distracted and forget.

I am not built to have human children, and sometimes that makes me sad. But when I start to cry about that, Logan climbs in my lap as if to say, “Mom, I am your kid.”

Logan is so smart, so funny, so adorable. He is very helpful and extremely comforting. Emotional support animals are generally trained to be that way.

If you have the desire and the means to obtain and train an emotional support animal, I am supportive. I can’t imagine life without him.

—SJB

In Memory of Charles Patrick Buice:

In Celebration of Logan Smith Buice