Lottie Dot
By Joanne Wannan
 Patricia Belt looks at a photograph of herself alongside her five-year-old Dalmatian, Lottie Dot, and can’t help but chuckle. Her blue eyes sparkle in the picture and she is obviously proud. But several wisps of hair have escaped from her upswept hairdo. They flutter at odd angles, some across her face, others straight up into the air. “Oh my, look at that! I’m such a mess!” Patricia exclaims. “I get so caught up with Lottie Dot, I never have time to think about myself, much less stop and comb my hair.”
It’s certainly no wonder. Lottie Dot is a dog with a multitude of talents and a chockablock schedule of places to go and people to see. She even has her own resumé, and it is truly an impressive one. Lottie has volunteered in 19 different facilities and received five different awards for her work. As for her interests, they include doing tricks, playing Frisbee, giving and receiving hugs, and capturing everyone’s heart.
What Lottie Dot’s resumé doesn’t tell you is that when she was only eight weeks old she was abandoned and almost froze to death in the snow. Read more
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Much More Than A Hearing Dog: The Story Of Jane And Sita Biehl
By Julie Flanders
 Jane Biehl resisted getting a hearing dog for years. Biehl, a counselor and professor in Canton, Ohio who has been deaf since childhood, felt that she had managed fine without a hearing dog for decades, and she could easily continue to do so.
Her attitude changed after a friend was robbed and beaten in his own home. Biehl felt vulnerable, and set out to change that by getting a hearing dog. As with so many things in life, the timing was fortuitous. If Biehl had decided to get a dog sooner, she wouldn’t have been partnered with Sita. And if there is one thing that has become clear in the nearly four years they have been together, it’s that Sita and Jane were meant to be. Read more
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