Before Chips, Sean describes life as a stretch of failing at nearly every relationship in his life until he felt alienated even from himself: broken marriages, broken relationships with his own kids, broken relationships at work. Therapy helped him understand why. But it didn’t stop it.
“Now I know why I’m like this,” he says, “but I still can’t stop it. Now I feel like even more of a failure.”
When there wasn’t a single viable relationship left standing, Sean knew he needed something different.
That something was 4Runner, his first Puppy Jake service dog. 4Runner didn’t ease Sean gently back into his life; he came in and dismantled the negative patterns that had taken over. Loyal without question, 4Runner gave Sean his life back, gave him the support he needed to take steps down the right path.
But when 4Runner retired on January 11, 2025, Sean was hesitant about bringing in another black Lab – half-worried he wouldn’t be able to move on from the dog who’d done so much for him. But it worked better than he could have imagined. Sean says the bond with Chips surprised even him, something he didn’t feel with 4Runner, even after everything they’d been through together. Chips didn’t replace what 4Runner built. He built on it a thousandfold.
“Chips is my oxygen, every day.” He’s the light Sean flips on each morning, awake before Sean is, already sitting bedside, ready to seize the day.
“If you want your life back, if you want your relationships to improve, if you want your work life to improve, if you want to wake up and hear the birds singing in the morning again, get yourself a service dog.”
