Susan and Jonathan's Story

The Bear Necessities

For Jonathan and Susan, it began with Bear. It was 1995, and Jonathan had encountered a yellow-vested PADS dog at the PNE. He was familiar with service dogs in the UK and was curious enough, that he called PADS. The person who answered that call was very helpful and offered to “drop by”. Shortly thereafter, Ron Tymrick arrived at Jonathan and Susan’s home in East Vancouver. After a lovely chat, he asked if they wanted to meet one of the PADS dogs. When they said yes, Ron went to his van and brought out Bear, a seven-month-old, 70-lb Shepherd-Lab cross from the BC SPCA. 

After laying down and rolling over at Susan’s feet for a tummy rub, there was no chance that Jonathan and Susan would say no. A few days later, Bear returned to their home to live and train with them.  

Jonathan let BCIT know that he would be bringing a service dog to his classes. Bear quickly became a favourite of everyone, and distinguished himself at Convocation by accompanying the bagpipe music with howling. Among Bear’s many adventures was serving on jury duty with Jonathan; mentioned by the judge as being the 13th member of the jury. (He didn’t get to vote, however.) 

In Canine College, there was no doubt Bear was the alpha among his fellow dogs in training. His role was readily accepted by the others and Bear was well-known for policing the class and stopping the other dogs from mixing it up.   

After Graduation in 1997, Bear was matched with a client named Randy and moved to Calgary.

It was at Graduation, when Susan and Jonathan met Randy and his family, that they decided they would also begin to donate to PADS. Randy and his family had openly shared the positive impact Bear was making in Randy’s life and were deeply grateful to PADS, as well as Susan and Jonathan for raising him. Susan said of that moment, “it made the buckets of tears I shed when Bear left so worthwhile.”  

After Bear, came PADS Brant, Leo, Harper and Leon. Harper was well-known to the PADS family and beyond – one of the cutest puppies ever, Harper was regularly featured in PADS’s promotional materials. While blessed with a stunning mien, Harper also had the attitude of a princeling. Susan wryly (and with a slight grin) noted, “Harper did not graduate Canine College. As a prince, he didn’t really want to work and there was no way he was going to serve anyone.” While life as a service dog wasn’t in the cards for Harper, life as a VIP dog was. And while Harper supported his family as a VIP, they treated him as a VIP in-kind.  

PADS Leon was one of the first puppies in the new Early Puppy Education program – a trial to keep puppies at the kennel Monday through Friday to instill a love of learning and more skills. The idea was the puppies would arrive in Canine College more advanced and reduce the amount of training time required before matching with a client.  

It turned out that all that time at the kennel fostered a keen interest in other dogs for Leon, but less connection with people. Leon ultimately graduated and was matched with a client, but the EPE experiment was concluded shortly thereafter.  

Beyond Puppy-Raising 

In addition to raising their five PADS puppies, Susan and Jonathan undertook puppy and service dog sitting, and several other volunteer activities for PADS – including gardening and maintenance at the Burnaby campus; supporting events; and selling raffle tickets. Susan brought the rolls of raffle tickets to her office (a downtown Vancouver law firm) and didn’t really give her colleagues a choice about buying them! Everyone of course wanted to buy the “arm’s length for $20” and use Jonathan’s long arms. Twice per year, Susan and Jonathan donated a weekend at their cabin on Whidbey Island – providing accommodation, a four-course meal and breakfast to the lucky winners. Rumour has it that martinis were served on the porch at sunset, but we cannot confirm or deny.  

Other long-time volunteers, Joan Black and Penny Bush used to lead the volunteer orientation sessions once per month. They asked Susan to join them – which she did, once – and then due to changes in their own lives and other volunteer support to PADS, Joan and Penny moved on from orientations. Susan became the lead and was joined by Doug Syms and Pride. During the years this dynamic duo helped to onboard new volunteers, they increased orientations to twice per month. At one point, with three litters on the ground at the same time, they were running orientation once per week and from two different facilities.  

It may be the dogs that bring you in, but it’s the people you stay for

Susan and Doug continued leading orientation right until the pandemic in March 2020. They onboarded thousands of volunteers during their time. Susan regularly would bump into people on the street, who would give her a second look, and a “hey – I know you from PADS!”.  

We asked Susan what is it about PADS that kept her and Jonathan connected to PADS for so long – first as volunteers, and now as significant donors. She gave three reasons: all of the history they have with PADS over the years; the fact that PADS is regional and people are connected to us in the Lower Mainland, the Okanagan and in Calgary and we’re not some faceless, large non-profit operating internationally; and finally – the people. As many have said over the years, “it may be the dogs that bring you in, but it’s the people you stay for.”  

While Susan and Jonathan have stepped back from volunteering due to Jonathan’s dementia, Susan hopes to return to it in the future. For now, she is happy to continue supporting PADS with their donations and is still moved to see the bonds forged between clients and their dogs.  

We are deeply grateful for volunteers like Susan and Jonathan and the hundreds more who power 90% of our programs. We are also deeply grateful for donors like Susan and Jonathan, and the hundreds more who fund 100% of our programs. We couldn’t do it without all of you.