| NAME: | Chancer |
| SPECIES: | Golden retriever |
| DATE: | January 2008 |
| LOCATION: | Roswell, Georgia |
| SITUATION: | Impaired child suffering fetal alcohol syndrome |
| WHO WAS SAVED: | Eleven-year-old Iyal Winokur |
| LEGACY: | The world’s first certified assistance dog for fetal alcohol syndrome |
In August 1999, unable to have children themselves, Harvey and Donnie Winokur eagerly adopted two undernourished, one-year-old babies—an unrelated girl and boy—from a Russian orphanage. The Winokurs were optimistic that they could create the kind of loving home in which the pair, Morasha and Iyal, would thrive.
After about two years, however, Iyal’s increasingly erratic behavior signaled deeper problems. While Morasha remained a bright and curious three-year-old girl, Iyal began having unexpected, raging tantrums; he would alternately hurt other kids and try to kiss strangers.
For a year, the Winokurs saw specialists of all kinds, but no one could diagnose Iyal’s issues. Meanwhile, the family was, Donnie said, “living with a constant anticipation of a hurricane.” Harvey said, “Iyal’s disabilities began to define our family’s existence.”
Then a pediatrician recognized the signs of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), an incurable birth defect, which is caused when a mother drinks during pregnancy. This was the worst-case scenario: Iyal was permanently brain damaged. Across the range of possible fetal alcohol disorders, FAS is the worst, and it would affect Iyal for life.
For several years, the Winokurs tried every known therapy and medication to ease or remedy Iyal’s condition. Nothing worked, and Donnie felt increasingly anguished and desperate; the strain of caring for Iyal was destroying their family.
Then in 2007, Donnie heard about the Ohio organization 4 Paws for Ability, which trained service dogs to work with autistic children. Could that work for Iyal? Karen Shirk, the executive director, said no one had ever trained a dog for FAS before, but she’d be willing to give it a try.
TRAINING FOR “INVISIBLE DISABILITIES”
Training dogs to work with “invisible disabilities”—particularly mental disabilities like autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other emotional impairments—was, and is, a relatively new idea. While it’s been shown to be effective, it takes a very special animal to succeed, since the person being served is, perhaps by definition, unreliable. Their mind isn’t right, so in some sense, the dog needs to think for them—anticipating and providing what’s needed without request.
For instance, trained dogs thrive on positive feedback, but someone who can’t control their emotions can become verbally or physically abusive to the animal, or their violent outbursts might scare the dog. Thus, dogs are trained to intervene when they sense an impending episode, and they must be emotionally strong to persevere when meltdowns can’t be stopped.
Jeremy Dulebohn, the 4 Paws training director, paired Iyal with Chancer, a shaggy, unruffled, go-with-the-flow golden with “high self-esteem.” Donnie said Dulebohn “taught Chancer three special skills: nuzzling against Iyal at the first sign of agitation; if Iyal was on the floor, climbing on top of Iyal’s legs and lying down (the pressure calming him); and tethering.” For the last, Chancer and Iyal would be connected by tethered vests, allowing Chancer to keep Iyal from running away.
In January 2008, when the time came for Chancer to join the Winokurs, the initial meeting at 4 Paws seemed disastrous. Chancer’s friendly eagerness won over everyone in the family but Iyal, who threw fits and ran off. The pair hardly interacted.
However, on the second day, the Winokurs brought Chancer back to the hotel where they were staying, so the dog could spend the night with them. On a walk, Chancer spotted Iyal in the hotel’s hot tub, jerked free from his leash, and dove into the water with a tremendous, ungainly splash.
Iyal was startled and laughed harder than his family had ever heard before. It was a strange scene: Iyal had not been drowning, nor was Chancer trained for water rescues. But Chancer’s unnecessary “rescue” sparked a connection that rang out loud and clear.
CONNECTIONS: CHANCER WITH IYAL, IYAL WITH THE WORLD
Initially, Harvey Winokur had vehemently resisted the idea of getting a dog. He didn’t think their household could handle the strain of one more being.
But, Harvey said, “The moment [Iyal] walked in the house with Chancer, I knew something had changed. I could feel it instantly, the magnetism between Iyal and the dog. . . . Chancer was an emotional and physical anchor for a kid who was pretty lost in the world.”
That night, snuggled with Chancer, Iyal slept through the night for the first time since 1999. Chancer immediately put his training into action and intervened whenever Iyal’s rages erupted. The slobbery dog kisses and the warm, furry, ninety-pound body pinning Iyal to the floor were often enough to relax Iyal and change his screams into laughter.
Within two weeks, Iyal was surprising his parents with unexpected cognitive improvements. He started using multisyllable words and expressing never-before-heard opinions, such as what he wanted for lunch. He also quit repeating everything his sister said.
Most startling of all, Iyal began to consider Chancer’s point of view. He developed what’s called a “theory of mind,” which most kids achieve by age four, and in this way he began to develop a self-awareness about his own condition.
One day, Donnie said, “I was in the kitchen, Iyal beside me, petting Chancer. Suddenly he said, ‘Mommy, do you think Chancer knows I love him?’”
“Was this for real?” Donnie asked herself. “My son, who had never uttered such a complex sentence, let alone expressed awareness that someone might have feelings different from his own? ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He knows. And he loves you.’”
At other times, Iyal asked, “Did Chancer’s birth mother drink alcohol?” and “Why did my birth mother drink alcohol?” The Winokurs had explained Iyal’s condition to him in the past, but received no indication that he understood.
Clearly, Iyal’s trusting, caring relationship with Chancer helped him to improve where other therapies and medications had not. As with Joe and Fonzie (page 109), what Chancer provided may have been the loving motivation that inspired Iyal to overcome obstacles on his own. As emotionally sensitive and aware as dogs are, it’s hard to say what the animal understands—such as whether Chancer knows Iyal is disabled. Whatever the animal knows, the human-animal bond seems to create a cascading positive effect.
NOT UNDERSTANDING THE RULES
Nevertheless, Iyal and Chancer’s story points to some of the limits of service animals as well. For all that Iyal has and may continue to improve, he remains neurologically damaged; as Iyal gets older, his psychological and emotional hurdles may grow. Chancer’s love and companionship cannot change that, and trainer Jeremy Dulebohn warns clients not to indulge in “the Lassie syndrome.” The presence of a service dog can heal in marvelous and unexpected ways, but it won’t heal everything or everyone.
Further, it’s an open question of what Chancer might do if Iyal told him to do something wrong—for instance, something that could hurt another person, Chancer, or even Iyal himself. As Donnie said, before Chancer came along, “Iyal had trouble remembering instructions from one day to the next. Don’t squeeze the cat. Don’t go out of the house. Don’t crowd your sister.”
In fact, animals can be trained in “intelligent disobedience,” so that they recognize and refuse a bad request. Seeing-eye dogs must be able to do this; they must evaluate the environment independently and signal their blind companion when a command is dangerous.
Yet a blind person knows the animal is trained to disobey for their own good; someone like Iyal, who suffers bouts of irrational, oppositional behavior, might not. Then, what about instructions that are morally wrong or inappropriate rather than physically dangerous? As some stories in this book suggest, certain species display a basic moral sense, but that doesn’t mean they possess ethics that reflect human cultural norms. It’s almost certain they don’t. If someone like Iyal can’t be trusted to know right from wrong, Chancer can’t be asked or trained to do this for him.
In other words, though Chancer and Iyal have become inextricably devoted to each other, Iyal can never be Chancer’s caretaker.
“He can’t even take Chancer for a walk around the block,” Donnie said. “He might drop the leash, and Chancer might interpret that release as permission to track a hamburger. Chancer’s an amazing service dog, but he is a dog.”
Luckily, for both Chancer and Iyal, being a dog is quite enough.
Animals think, but do they understand that they think and that other animals have their own independent thoughts? For Iyal, this awareness was not automatic, and it may have taken his relationship with Chancer to bring it out. Iyal loved Chancer so much he finally had to know: Did Chancer understand what he felt?
Imagining the mind and perspective of another is called “Theory of Mind.” For a long time, scientists considered only humans capable of this cognitive leap, but as with so many claims to human exceptionalism, this turns out to be not an exclusive ability.
Empathy—the ability to feel or understand what another animal is feeling—is different from considering the world from their perspective. To do this requires mentally projecting oneself into the mind of another, as well as awareness of one’s own knowledge—it allows us to guess someone’s intentions and to recognize when we don’t know something.
For instance, Chancer certainly senses when Iyal’s feeling distressed, but can he ask himself: WWID, what would Iyal do? Or, more specifically, WIIITD: what is Iyal intending to do?
According to scientist Marc Bekoff, yes. “My own research on social play behavior in dogs, coyotes, and wolves,” Bekoff has written, “has also led me to conclude that they have a theory of mind.”
Apes and dolphins have also displayed theory of mind, and some feel that monkeys, elephants, orcas, and parrots also show signs of it. As with mirror neurons (see page 59), the ability to understand that other animals think may be a necessity for highly social mammals.
This matters to us, deeply. Like Iyal, we want to know that our companion animals know that we love them—that there is mutual understanding. Like Donnie Winokur, we want to say “he knows” and believe it.