SERVICE DOG HELPS PARALYMPIC TRIATHLETE TRAIN
Paralympic triathlete’s dog Mowgli helps Allysa Seely train — and may be a lifesaver, too
Allysa Seely’s best friend is a service dog who helps her through medical emergencies. He’s also a training partner for the Paralympic triathlete, typically running 30 to 40 miles a week with her.
When she leaves home without him, he waits by a front window and watches for her to return.
Perhaps most remarkably, though, the 3-yearold golden retriever named Mowgli seems to have a sixth sense about her impending medical crises before she does, something that defies explanation.
“I don’t get much of a warning when I am about to have a seizure or a drop in blood pressure or blood glucose,” said Seely, who claimed a gold medal in triathlon at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro. “He does get that warning. That’s a time that can be very dangerous. He makes sure I’m safe.
“He’s pretty calm if I’m laying down or sitting down, he’ll just come curl up on me and not move so I can’t get up. Other times if I’m up and around and moving, he will warn me and try to get me to sit down or lay down. That really avoids major falls, hitting your head or anything like that.”
Seely, whose lower left leg was amputated as a result of progressive medical issues, said no one knows how Mowgli can sense her medical emergencies coming before she does. It wasn’t part of his service dog training. Seely speculates he somehow picks up on a scent.
“The other morning he wouldn’t let me get out of bed to go to practice,” Seely said. “I took my blood sugar and it was like 62, so it was kind of low and on its way down. He was like, ‘Nope, I’m going to just lay on you.’ ”
Mowgli springs into action when she suffers seizures and loses consciousness.
“From what I’ve been told, if there are people around and he knows there is someone there to kind of take care of me, he’ll just come curl up under my head or curl up next to me so I don’t hit my head or fall,” Seely said. “Usually the first thing I remember (after regaining consciousness) is him licking my face and barking at me, trying to get my attention.”
Seely, who grew up in Arizona and relocated to Colorado Springs in December 2016 to utilize the resources of the Olympic Training Center there, fell in love with triathlon as an able-bodied athlete after the first one she did while a college student in 2008. She joined the Arizona State triathlon team but soon began to experience numbness and tingling in her extremities. A host of other debilitating neurological symptoms soon followed.
“The legs that could carry me 18 miles were now struggling to walk across my house,” Seely said.
It took two years before doctors could find the causes: Chiari malformation Type 2, basilar invagination and EhlersDanlos syndrome.
“In layman’s terms, my cerebellum is herniated into my spinal column, so the portion of your brain that controls a lot of autonomic functions — breathing, balance, coordination — was injured,” Seely said. “In addition to that, I had some spinal cord damage, because both of them were compressed. The spinal cord damage is at the very top of my spine, so it impairs a lot of my muscles as well as coordination and reflexes.”
The two-year struggle between onset of symptoms and diagnosis (which led to a series of surgeries) was horrible. She felt like she wasn’t living, just surviving.
“That all ended the day I was diagnosed,” Seely said. “It wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible, but it was something to work with. I made a promise to myself the day I had my brain and spine surgery that no matter what happened, I was going to live again.
“It took me a few days to figure out what I meant by that. It was one of those things, it just kind of popped into my head, ‘I’m going to start living again, because I can’t keep going through life like I have been.’ ”
The brain and spinal surgeries were in 2010. She would need physical and speech therapy, and doctors said it was unlikely she would regain the ability to walk, but she was determined to return to triathlon. She would become the first triathlete with a physical disability to compete at the collegiate national championships. Then she won a national title in disabled triathlon.
Neurological deterioration made it necessary to amputate her lower left leg in 2013. Seven weeks later, she was competing again.
ESPN the Magazine included her in its “Body Issue” of 2016. And when triathlon made its debut as a Paralympic sport that year (16 years after it debuted in the Olympics), she won a gold medal. As she ran the blue carpet that marked the home stretch to the Paralympic finish line at Copacabana Beach, she heard a familiar voice in the crowd.
“I look over and my brother is running along the barricade, pushing people out of the way, tripping over the legs of the barricades, screaming at the top of his lungs,” Seely said. “There’s all these fans and all I hear is him and how proud of me he was. The memory of it still is overwhelming. It’s almost like I was living in a movie and still haven’t been able to come out of that movie. I see video of it and it’s hard to realize that actually happened.”
She has won four medals at world championships and more than a dozen World Cup medals. She’s training now for world championships coming in September in Australia. Her foremost goal is to repeat as Paralympic champion two years from now in Tokyo. And maybe four years later in Paris.
She believes triathlon saved her life.
“It played into my decision to just move forward,” Seely said. “I knew if I didn’t, the doctors could have been right, maybe I would have had only a few months to live. I 100 percent believe if it wasn’t for triathlon and finding an active lifestyle, I wouldn’t be here today.”
And always by her side is loyal Mowgli.
“He really is my best friend,” Seely said. “He wants to be a part of everything. When days are bad, he wants to make them better. When I’m not feeling well, he’ll snuggle up beside me. He can run 20 miles and keep going.
“Last summer after I was having quite a few health problems and surgery after surgery after surgery, he laid in bed with me for seven days in a row, just stayed there vigilantly. He wasn’t going to move until I felt better. It’s always amazing to come home to him because it just makes everything better. If it’s a good day, it’s so fun to celebrate with him. If it’s a bad day, it takes your mind off everything.”