Always by her side

Along with her backpack and books, Homewood High sophomore Macy Squires brings something extra to school each day: Max, her service dog.

Max spends most of the school day lying quietly next to Macy’s desk, unless he recognizes the signs, imperceptible to humans, that Macy is about to have a seizure or her blood sugar has dropped dangerously low.

“He’s probably saved my life a couple of times,” Macy said.

Macy’s seizures began in eighth grade, and she was homebound for part of the year. After a seizure caused her to fall and hit the back of her head, forming a hematoma, Macy said her family began looking for “outside of the box options.” That’s when they learned about the possibility of a service dog, trained to detect scent changes that precede seizures and hypoglycemia.

The only problem: Macy was allergic to dogs.

The Squires couldn’t get just any service dog. Fortunately, Max is a poodle, a hypoallergenic breed, and both of his parents were therapy animals. When they first met Max, Macy said it immediately felt right.

“My mom cried. It was just kind of like an instant bond, you couldn’t break it,” she said.

He almost immediately proved his worth. About a week after bringing Max home, Macy passed out due to a blood sugar drop. Max ran back and forth to Macy’s mother until she realized something was wrong with her daughter.

“That’s when we knew he would do good as a service dog,” Macy said.

After a few months of training at Roverchase in Pelham, Max earned the purple vest that marks him as a service animal. He’s trained to lie across Macy’s legs if she’s about to have a seizure or lick her arms to indicate that her blood sugar is low. His early warnings give her enough time to get to a safe place or take insulin.

“They told me when we started it was going to be a trust thing, and I was either going to be all in or not in at all,” Macy said, adding that by the end of the first month working with Max, she felt she could “fully rely” on him.

Just having him by her side has also been beneficial.

“My seizures have decreased since I’ve had him, and I think part of it is probably stress relief knowing that he’s going to let me know ahead of time and there’s not going to be falling. Basically I don’t stress out about when’s it going to happen,” Macy said.

When Max’s vest goes on in the morning, he’s ready to work. He’s calm and always paying attention to even slight changes in Macy. He enjoys the sights and sounds of going to school with her each day.

“He loves coming to school. He’s probably the most excited person in the morning,” Macy said.

Jami Wilson, Macy’s physical science teacher, said some of the teachers at HHS were initially nervous about Max coming to school, as they didn’t know if he would be a distraction. Those concerns were quickly put to rest. After the novelty of a poodle walking the halls wore off, students and teachers have seen Max as another regular part of their high school day.

“Honestly, I’ve loved having him in class with Macy,” Wilson said. “She’s done so well with it. It’s just like it’s no big deal. It’s Macy and Max, no different from somebody with a backpack. It’s just she has a dog and a backpack.”

Macy has also brought Max to visit special education students at Homewood High.

“I thoroughly enjoy visiting with them and they all love him, and he loves having that attention,” she said.

After school, Max accompanies Macy to honor band and chamber woodwind practice, where she plays the bassoon. Macy doesn’t do marching band, in part because of the physical strain on her body and partly because Max hates the drums. 

Macy also works at Roverchase some afternoons, helping to handle and bathe the dogs while Max gets some time off to play. Because she works with the people who trained Max, she never has to worry about her dog being welcome in the workplace.

While people at school and work are used to seeing Max, people at stores and restaurants are not. Macy said employees sometimes stop her because they think service dogs are only for the blind or that he isn’t trained well enough to come inside the store.

“It’s not a common thing you see every day in the business world, and I think there could be more awareness,” Macy said.

In December, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society awarded Max their 2015 Olivia Bearden award for his service to Macy. When they get home, however, the vest comes off and it is Max’s cue to relax. He will run, play with other dogs and act like a typical family pet.

Max will accompany Macy through her remaining two years of high school and through college. She wants to study veterinary medicine and eventually would like to work with an organization to provide service dogs for others. Macy said she would like to work with individuals with autism, diabetes or other conditions that place them lower on the priority list for most organizations, so they can experience the same life improvements that Max has brought to her.

“I think he’s opened my eyes to a different side of the world,” Macy said.