EVPP’s Savannah Brown credits dog Diesel with changing and saving her life

In order to understand the path that East Valley Parent Partnership senior Savannah Brown has traveled to graduation, it’s probably best to begin near the end.

Brown has been enrolled in the East Valley School District programs for the past three years, but it wasn’t until her abbreviated senior year, in Parent Partnership, that she really flourished, making up a huge credit deficit to graduate on time. She credits that to hard work, and to her service dog, Diesel.

The EVPP works directly with parents and guardians to provide an alternative educational setting. Families are responsible for teaching their children in coordination with EVPP staff. Brown’s grandmother, Sharon Coleman, described it as sort of a combination of distance learning and homeschooling.

Brown’s life until recently had been a history of trauma, loss and anxiety.She was treated in a local behavioral health center, and later diagnosed with PTSD.

Brown grew up in Alabama, and as she puts it, “Most people may think that my life got messy starting in 2016, but the truth is, it was messy way before that. For as long as I can remember I was always so angry and sad, and the only one who ever knew was my grandma, and she was 3,000 miles away in Washington. I cried because I was scared my mom was going to die, and because I hated myself and I didn’t understand why I was always so angry.”

“I used to call my grandma every night to pray, but also to cry,” she said.

She lost two friends who were killed in a head-on collision in January 2016, and her worst fears were realized only a few months later when her mother died.

“I lost the rest of my heart,” Brown said. “I lost the home that I grew up in, the home she put so much work into from the ground up.”

She moved to Washington to live with her grandparents shortly after that, angrier than ever, self-harming and suicidal.

“To say I was angry is an understatement,” she said. “All I ever did was scream at everyone. It didn’t matter what anyone did, it wasn’t good enough. I just wanted to stop hurting.”

Even after inpatient and outpatient therapy, Brown’s anxiety was often crippling. She increasingly isolated herself and had frequent blowups at school, with even the smallest things setting her off.

“I would get so anxious that my legs would just shake and shake,” she said. “I was having the same nightmares night after night, and I pushed away every friend I had left. The only reason my family stuck around was because, well, they were family. My grandma was at a loss. She wasn’t sure what to do anymore.”

It was after a short-lived vacation to Alabama that Brown and her grandparents, searching for answers, had a conversation about the possibility of getting a service animal. Purchasing a fully trained dog costs as much as $25,000, so self-training was the only option. Her heart was set on a German shepherd, but the highly regarded trainer they found discouraged that choice and helped her to find Diesel, a 4 1/2-year-old black Labrador who was being rehomed.

After some initial reluctance, Brown fell in love with him and – with some support – has trained him to meet legal service animal requirements.

“On March 2, 2019, the day I got him, my life gained a purpose,” she said. “He puts a smile on my face even on my dark days. He’s learned so much in the past year, and he keeps learning. He has passed the Canine Good Citizen test. Since I got him, I haven’t had issues to the extent I used to, and when I do, he is on it. He not only changed my life, he saved it. He is a prayer God answered for me.”

She may eventually become a dog handler, but before that Brown will attend Spokane Community College in the fall in the culinary arts program, having realized that even the worst times have been just one chapter in her life, and that she is coming out the other end.