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- Every day, a golden-haired angel follows Mike
Lingenfelter
to his cubicle.
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- Then he sits down, plays with
his teddy bear and chews
on a big bone.
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- Dakota, a 98-pound golden
retriever, began as a physical-
and mental-therapy dog for Mr.
Lingenfelter, a contract consultant for
DART. The 6-year-old dog has
been credited with sensing and warning when
his owner is about to have
a heart attack.
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- "I owe my life to this creature," said Mr.
Lingenfelter, gently stroking the forehead of the retriever, which was
honored this week with a national service animal award.
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- This story of a man
and his dog began in 1992, when Mr.
Lingenfelter suffered two severe
heart attacks in four days. After that,
his memory failed. Even writing
his name became difficult. Severe depression
kicked in. Work was out of
the question.
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- Enter Dakota as a tail-wagging mental- and physical-therapy
specialist. The former Humane Society rescue dog got a second chance after
recovering from heartworms and a broken hip. And the canine has made the
best of it.
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- Mr. Lingenfelter, who suffers from coronary and pulmonary
disease and cardiovascular disease, credits Dakota for his eventual return
to work designing communications systems for the DART rail lines to Plano
and Garland.
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- "My life had gone down so far, I couldn't recover,"
said Mr. Lingenfelter, who lives in Plano. "Dakota made me go
walking.
He made me meet people again."
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- Within a year of pairing up,
Dakota began to take on
extra duties not included in his job
description. The dog, Mr. Lingenfelter
said, can sense when he is about
to have another heart attack.
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- Then he really goes to work.
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- "He's very discreet at
first. He'll come over and
lay his head on my lap and stare at
me," he said. "If I don't
pay attention, he'll poke me with
his nose. If I still don't pay attention,
he begins pushing
me."
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- Dogs have keener senses of smell than humans, so such
a
response should not be a surprise, said Dr. Charles Pierce, a physician
who first met Dakota at the national awards ceremony last weekend.
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- About three times a
week, Dakota has to give Mr. Lingenfelter
a reminder nudge for his
medication. Since they've been together, Dakota
has helped during three
major heart attacks.
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- The most recent in May probably would have been fatal
had Dakota not alerted his wife in the middle of the night, Mr.
Lingenfelter
said.
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- Dakota was one of four animals honored by the Delta
Society,
a leading animal-assisted therapy group based in Renton, Wash.
At the ceremony
Saturday, Dakota earned a gold dog tag recognizing him
as a 1999 Beyond
Limits Award for service dog of the year.
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- What has probably
happened, Dr. Pierce said, is that
Dakota has learned to sense Mr.
Lingenfelter's increasing heart rate and
smell the hormones Mr.
Lingenfelter gives off before a heart attack.
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- "Animals can learn if
their master is in trouble,
and their master could go away for a while
if this body chemistry is high,"
Dr. Pierce said. "It doesn't
surprise me a bit that an animal can
sense a body's stress before the
body can even tell it."
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- DART readily accepted Dakota, who has taken on a mascot
role at the transit agency. The retriever has a dog bed under Mr.
Lingenfelter's
desk, and his stuffed bear and chew bone always lie
nearby.
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- Dakota's case illustrates how important service dogs
are and
how they should be welcomed in every workplace, said Mr. Lingenfelter,
who said his condition is accepted under the Americans with Disabilities
Act.
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- Sometimes, he added, he has difficulty making people
in
restaurants and shops understand Dakota's job with his "invisible
disability," but most are accommodating.
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- "To bring Dakota into the
workplace takes nothing
special," said Frank DeLizza, Mr.
Lingenfelter's boss and area manager
for Parsons Transportation.
"It helps bring someone back into the
workplace. Mike is one of
the best guys at what he does in the country."
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- Many in the office come by
Dakota's spot for a quick
stress test. They produce a hand for the dog
to sniff, wanting to make
sure the job of building $1 billion worth of
rail lines isn't taking too
much of a toll on them.
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- Outside the office,
Dakota likes to go for a swim and
has a bad habit of shaking himself
dry in the family kitchen.
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- But Mr. Lingenfelter said Dakota has a special place
in his heart - and even on his bed.
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- "Right between me and my
wife, with his head on
my pillow," he said. "And he snores,
too."
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