Teacher’s Pet

Before Jumar came along, Christina Kimm of Glendale would work for hours at her home computer without taking a break.

But since the retriever was placed with her through Canine Companions for Independence, an agency that trains service dogs and matches them with disabled people, Kimm has learned to set her work aside for a romp in the grass.

“I am just a professor who works all the time,” said Kimm, a special education instructor at Cal State Los Angeles. “But this dog doesn’t care about my being a professor, or my work. . . . I have to play.”

As an infant, Kimm, 40, contracted polio and lost the use of her left leg. Later, she mostly relied on a cane to get around.

About six years ago, Kimm said, her right leg grew weaker, and doctors determined that she had post-polio syndrome, a recurrence of the disease.

After seeing a Canine Companions demonstration at an exposition in 1994, Kimm, now mostly in a wheelchair, signed up for a dog, believing it would offer both help and companionship.

Kimm told the group she needed a dog that could fetch her cane and portable telephone as well as pull her wheelchair when she was tired.

Canine Companions selected Jumar, named for a piece of rock-climbing equipment, and spent six months training the dog to open and close doors and turn lights on and off, among 50 other commands.

Jumar went home with Kimm to Glendale after graduation exercises in May at Canine Companions headquarters in Oceanside. At the ceremony, hundreds of volunteers and staff members were recognized for raising and training the dogs and matching them with the disabled.

“It was so overwhelming for me that so many people cared to help me to become more independent,” Kimm said.

In the month they have been together, Jumar has learned to take dirty clothes to the laundry room, and Kimm has learned to pencil in playtime with the 20-month-old dog.

In the past, Kimm said, she experienced bouts of depression, brought on by loneliness and isolation. Having Jumar around, she said, has given her a lift.

“It makes me happy that someone is paying attention to me all the time,” Kimm said.