Friday, July 4, 2025
To the Chisholm Family, my deepest condolences go out to you on your great loss. Despite the thousands of prayers being recited for Mary Ann for her return to good health, it just was not meant to be. As mentioned in Mary Ann's obituary, as Assistant Director of Nursing at the R.K. MacDonald Nursing Home, Mary Ann had arranged for a Special Skills (Service Dog) through the Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guide Program for a younger person who had suffered a stroke & who had become a resident of the Nursing Home. In fact this was the very first (Service Dog - Special Skills) for a resident of any Nursing Home in Canada. These Service Dogs are trained to assist at tasks such as opening institutional electric doors with these nose pushing the buttons, opening fridge doors (with the help of a towel tied around the fridge door handle) to retrieve a cold drink etc. Additionally, in this case Freedom (the Dog's name), used to shove this resident up into bed, when she went to get out of her electric wheelchair. The stroke had limited this resident's upper body strength & so Freedom's skills were amazing. One little story comes to mind before I end this condolence. Freedom's owner loved to be outdoors especially under the gazebo in front of the R.K. Nursing Home on a nice day where she would soon fall asleep. When this happened especially in the early years, Freedom would take off & go for a walk around town by himself. When the Lions Foundation of Canada found about about this, they were a little concerned for this $35,000.00 Guide Dog (cost to the Lions Foundation to raise, train & place with handler) on the loose. Freedom of course would be wearing his Lions Foundation of Canada harness on his trek around town & nothing ever happened. As he got older however, on a nice day Freedom would also fall asleep under the gazebo with his owner. The Lions Foundation of Canada through local Lions Clubs also raise & train Guide Dogs for people with vision loss Canine Vision, Hearing (loss), Diabetes Alert (low blood sugar), Seizure Response (people subject to seizures), Facility Support (those persons like veterans who are suffering because of their war time experience), Austism Assistance (children with austism ) & Service Dogs (Special Skills Dogs) at no cost for those that need a Guide Dog.
Donald M. MacLellan (Antigonish Lions Club)
