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Law lab

By Joni Moths Mueller | Photo by Kevin Pauly, Comm '10

This law lab has four paws, not four walls, and she's actually a lab and retriever mix. Bahari is completing the first segment of service dog training beneath desks and tabletops in Eckstein Hall. And she'll wear a purple ribbon at December Commencement, when she celebrates the epochal moment of handler Marty Greer's six-year journey to add the credential J.D. right beside D.V.M.

As a doctor of veterinary medicine, Greer commits daily to healing the aches and ills of dogs, cats and "pocket pets" at her veterinary hospital in Lomira, Wis. About six years ago, Greer began thinking about expanding her skills to do something less physical than veterinary practice.

"There are 500 to 600 vets in the country who also are lawyers," she says. "That looked like a place to use my skills in another way, probably some aspect of animal law."

Greer visited Marquette Law School twice to investigate the part-time program that allows students to move through the law curriculum at a slower pace. With Dean Joseph Kearney's permission, Bahari joined Greer a year ago, matching her handler's pace and learning the good manners that a young service dog masters before moving on to advanced training.

Bahari accompanies Greer everywhere from law school to Friday night fish fry to church. She'll stay with the Greer family until she is one and a half years old, learning about 40 simple commands and how to handle social and environmental situations, including riding elevators and escalators, and even how to walk up and down Eckstein Hall's open central stairway which is a challenge Bahari is still conquering.

Bahari is the fifth service dog to become a member of the Greer family. They raise the dogs for Canine Companions for Independence, an organization that provides dogs to disabled children and adults at no cost. "Our family has been very blessed, and this is our way of giving back," Greer says.

The Greer's first dog, Ward, was matched with an 11-year-old child with Angleman syndrome. "Once you've been to a graduation where the dog and owner are matched, you can't say no," Greer says. "You see the genuine empowerment, the way the dog changes their life. You've just given them a part of their life back that they lost."

Greer and Bahari will graduate from Marquette Law School in December. Bahari will move on for six months of advanced service dog training at Canine Companions after she turns one and a half years old. Marty Greer and Bahari will probably celebrate that graduation together, too.