People smile as the leggy blonde enters the Grandin Road Food Lion, gets a bottle of pain reliever off the shelf, carries it to the check-out counter and passes cashier Ellen Stone the money in a bright red change purse – in her mouth.
It’s all in a day’s work for “Kenda the wonder dog,” better known as Leigh Singh’s service dog.
Kenda is a 5-year-old yellow Lab trained by St. Francis of Assisi to assist someone like Cave Spring resident Singh, who was born with cerebral palsy. The soulful-eyed dog performs such everyday activities as opening heavy doors, carrying packages and retrieving dropped objects such as her mistress’ keys.
“That’s my baby. I’m so proud of you,” oozes cashier Cugini Bond, one of Kenda’s biggest fans. “She almost makes me want to go get a dog. ’Bye, precious punkin.’
Doing her job as a service dog while making friends is what Kenda does best. It’s what she lives for.
Kenda’s job starts about 6:30 a.m. every day when she hops on the bed.
“She’s my Lab alarm clock,” explains Singh, 34.
“The first thing this morning she brought my Isotoner slippers, then she opened the refrigerator so I could get my juice out. She turned on the lights for me in the hallway and picked up a pen that I dropped. Pick that up, please,” Singh commands, and Kenda did it.
“This is one of those mornings that she had to retrieve a lot of things.”
To somebody who didn’t know, when she’s in the house Kenda might not look like a dog at work. She isn’t wearing her St. Francis pack yet and doesn’t have on her harness with the upright handle Singh uses to steady herself when she walks.
If her mistress isn’t going out to do errands or to a doctor’s appointment that morning, Kenda lolls around the house, never more than a foot or two away from Singh while she’s writing stories – or her current project, what she calls her “big book,” about her first service dog, Slugger – at her laptop computer.
But this is errands day.
After a quick romp with a tennis ball and a potty stop in her fenced-back yard, Kenda is ready to get “dressed” in her vest and harness. The transformation in her attitude is immediate.
“It always amazes me. The minute I start putting on her pack she becomes a different dog. She knows she’s about to go to work,” her mistress explains.
At 10:15 a.m., Kenda jumps into the rear section of Singh’s compact station wagon and they pull out of the driveway. Five minutes later woman and dog get out in the grocery store parking lot.
“Get the keys,” Singh says, and her dog picks up off the pavement the soft, brightly colored key chain that matches her leash.
After paying, Kenda carries a plastic bag with her favorite person’s purchases in it out to the car. Next stop, the office of Dr. Craig A. Wilhelms, podiatriast.
Singh hooks a black braided cord with an S hook to the handle of the heavy glass office door.
“Tug it,” she commands. “Hold. Good job.”
It takes a little extra practice, but Kenda manages to open the door and hold it wide enough for Singh to get through.
“I’m using this as a practice session,” she explains. “I have to know what words to say to her.”
“Good dog. This dog is great. I’m in awe of her,” says the receptionist.
“I’ve had her for three years and I’m absolutely in awe of her,” Singh replies.
To Kenda, “Good job. Down. I’m going to give you a piece of cheese.”
At the name of the familiar treat, Kenda gives her friend her complete attention until Singh unwraps the stick of Mozzarella cheese.
“Wait, leave it. Good girl,” she says, referring to a crumb of cheese on the rug.”
Other patients in the waiting area watch with admiration.
At 11:04 Kenda jumps up when her mistress’ name is called and they are ushered into the examining room, Singh leaning on Kenda’s harness handle.
As they make another appointment for two weeks later, the receptionist calls out, “Keep Miss Kenda happy.” The dog wags her tail and heads for the door.
“A little bit of cheese and a lot of love, that’s all it takes,” Singh answers.
Kenda bounds into the car, depositing more of her pale, almost white, hair on the carpet.
“Only another animal person would understand,” Singh says of the hair. “Slugger’s hair is in there, too. I can’t bring myself to vacuum it out.”
As Slugger’s health worsened, Singh retired him and Kenda took over. He taught Kenda some of his favorite tricks, such as hiding one of Singh’s socks under the table.
“The only thing worse than dog breath is dog sock breath,” she told students at West Salem Elementary School, causing them to laugh. She was there to read her story about Slugger, “Pop Pop’s Promise,” which was published in the book “Chicken Soup for the Body & Soul.”
Although he died in her arms a year ago at age 12, Singh made it possible for Slugger to live forever in her story.
At home there are reminders of Slugger everywhere, especially on a small table in front of portraits of the first dog. It’s a virtual shrine, with a painting Singh’s husband, Pranav, did of Slugger and Leigh; another portrait painted by a friend, photographs and a bone-shaped painted tin box.
The box contains Slugger’s ashes.
He accompanied his mistress to graduate school at James Madison University and, in effect, was responsible for her meeting her future husband.
“The first thing he ever said to me was, ‘Would your dog like pretzel?’ I told him Slugger was working and couldn’t have one but ‘I wouldn’t mind one,’ because I really wanted to meet this guy.”
She learned to lean on Slugger literally and he gave her confidence.
When Singh first got Slugger, she was nervous about how he would perform and whether he would stay by the table, for instance, while she went to the buffet in a pizza restaurant. Not only did he stay but like good service dogs – who are never fed from the table so they won’t be tempted in restaurants – Slugger ignored a meatball that had fallen on the floor.
Singh wrote about that in another story, “Something Good: The story of a Dog’s Love and Service.”
Singh earned a degree in community agency counseling and later worked for the Harrisonburg Community Services Board.
She and her husband moved to the Cave Spring area two years ago for Pranav’s job. He works in data base administration for Advance Auto in Roanoke.
Writing is part of Singh. She’s been a published author since she was 15.
Pop Pop’s Promise is about her grandfather Kenneth Brill, who told her, “Every part of life holds the promise of something good.”
Because of the physical limitations of cerebral palsy, she had trouble believing that, Singh admitted in her story. But with Slugger’s help, she grew to understand what her grandfather had meant.
“I learned to define myself not by what I had to overcome,” she said, “but by what I had the courage to become.”
It’s 12:05 p.m. At home once again after a morning of errands around Cave Spring, Singh and Kenda are once more in the front hallway where the dog’s “work uniform” is kept.
“Alright, missy, are you ready to get undressed and be a dog again?”
Kenda is panting from the warmth of the day as her mistress takes off the dog’s red vest, then the harness.
“I always scratch her back after I take her packs off. I think it makes her feel better because the pack messes up her hair.”
Another piece of cheese. “You’ve earned it,” Singh tells her. “You worked hard. OK, you can chill.”
Kenda immediately picks up her blue-and-green stuffed bunny toy.
She waits for Singh to fill her water bowl in the kitchen.
“I made her carry a lot of things this morning. I imagine that makes her mouth get dry.”
Kenda responds with noisy slurps.
As her dog relieves herself in the fenced yard, then retrieves her favorite toys at her mistress’ command, Singh reflects on her life: “I’ve had service dogs a third of my life,” she says. “And it’s been a very good third. It’s been full of dog hair but it’s been a fair trade off, I would say.”