Levi had his preliminary hip x-rays on January 27th at 14 months old.

It was a regular vet, not an orthopedic vet. The news wasn’t great. His left hip socket is shallow. My trainer was not told how shallow, since apparently only ortho vets give the ratings. Sadly, I was told that Levi would never be able to do mobility work. (I’d planned for him to do momentum pulling.) Thankfully he was not placed on any exercise restrictions or any training restrictions after the x-rays. It was only working that was a risk.

He could have probably been a working dog, but would have had to retire early. How early was “early”? We had no way to know. A second opinion from an actual ortho vet could have given us a better timeline, but I didn’t have the money for that and even if I did, it probably wouldn’t have told us anything different.

While Levi might have been able to work the normal amount of working years (for his breed mixes) with little to no problems, he also may have problems down the road and have to be pulled from working far sooner than “normal”. My trainer told me that Levi’s hip made him prone to injury, and if he happens to twist wrong in a year, that could be it. He could be pulled from all work in as little as a year.

I had to make a decision.

Do I continue pouring money into a dog who would more than likely have to retire early? Or do I rehome him to a pet home, and start over with another prospect? It was evening when I found out his x-ray results, and by the next morning I’d made the choice to wash him out of training.

I liked Levi. I liked him for his size (height and weight), his very calm temperament, for the fact that he reacts WONDERFULLY to people with my condition. I liked the fact that we found a dog who had already been in training as a SDiT, and thus has a fantastic foundation laid. Any future prospect we find would probably not have that foundation, since my trainer will now be looking for a young adult dog around a year old.

I decided that I’d rather begin again with a dog whose parentage is known, and whose hips are cleared, instead of playing the “hoping” game with Levi’s hips.

Just a few days after washing Levi out, I drove through the area on a cross-country move from California to Minnesota. I met and photographed the dog who had been planned for me less than 48 hours after making a very hard decision to pull him from all service dog training. He was everything I hoped he’d be, minus being a dog with fantastic hips.

In early February my trainer interviewed several prospective owners and families who were interested in adopting Levi as a pet. He went to a couple about my age (late twenties) who like to go camping. One of them works from home, so Levi won’t be alone/bored all day! They went to meet him on February 4th, and picked him up February 7th.

This couple will be taking Tucker, as they renamed him, to training sessions with the same dog trainer just to stimulate him and make him into the best dog he can be! Wanting to continue his training is a good sign, and it makes me happy about his new life as a beloved pet.