珍妮·瑪麗·拉斯卡斯/Jeanne Marie Laskas
When Leana Beasley wondered about a name for her new service dog, she thought about one of her favorite Bible quotes：“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
“Faith，”she said, cradling the rottweiler puppy.“Ill name you Faith.”
That was in 2001，and Leana, now 46，who is divorced and lives with her 20-year-old son, Michael, in a house in Puget Sound, Washington, admits she found the transition to the new dog diffcult. Leana is wheelchair-bound and suffers from epilepsy；for nearly a decade she had come to depend on Bronson, her frst service dog, to help her with chores and errands and, most critically, to assist her in the event of epileptic seizures. Bronson was retiring from service and evolving into a regular pet for Leana and her son.
Deep down, Leana doubted shed ever trust another dog asdeeply as she did Bronson, the creature she had come to regard as her guardian angel.
“Okay, Faith，”she said to her new dog, a brindled bundle of energy with eager eyes.“We have a lot of work to do, so lets get started.”
Scientists speculate that some dogs, with their supremely sensitive noses, might be able to detect subtle changes in human body chemistry that occur just before a seizure. But only a select few know how to interpret that olfactory information as worthy of alarm.
Faith was eventually trained to understand and answer more than 150 commands, but it wasn‘t until the evening of September 6，2004，that Leana would learn what, exactly, Faith was made of. Leana and her son were then living in Richland, Washington. It was a typical evening：Michael had left for his night shift at the local grocery store, and Leana headed to bed, feeling a little sick, as if she were getting the fu. She checked on Bronson, asleep in the living room, and went into her bedroom. Faith wouldn’t leave her side. She wouldn‘t lay down in her basket next to the bed, but instead stood there looking at Leana and……talking. That’s how it sounded, like a kind of chatter“Roo roo rooo rooo”.