Service dog helps LaFayette farmer return to cattle work
BY SAM VISE
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — Across the pastures of Harmon Farms, cattle work has always been a family affair. For generations, working the herd meant every hand pitched in, moving through the fields together when it came time to separate calves, administer shots and tag ears.
“Before his accident, everybody helped,” said Debbie Harmon, whose husband’s family has worked the land for decades. “When we wean the calves and tag their ears and all that, everybody has a job. Since Thomas’s accident, he has not.”
That dynamic has shifted with the arrival of Zac, a 2-year-old border collie trained specifically to work alongside Thomas Harmon, a fifth-generation cattleman whose accident left him unable to participate in the farm’s daily cattle operations as he once did.
Zac arrived in LaFayette last week through PHARM Dog USA (Pets Helping Agriculture in Rural Missouri), a national nonprofit dedicated to placing custom-trained service and herding dogs with farmers coping with physical disabilities, illness or debilitating injuries. Thomas is the 31st farmer in the country to receive a placement through the program.
For Thomas, having Zac on the farm marks the beginning of regaining his independence in the pasture.
“Everything’s going really good. We’re just taking it day by day,” Thomas said. “Yesterday we worked a lot on moving cows, moving them off of the fields and onto other fields — I think that’ll be something maybe me and him will be able to do just the two of us at some point, and that should be helpful for everybody.”
A bridge to recovery
The road to bringing Zac to Chambers County began two years ago in an Atlanta hospital room.
Thomas was undergoing rehabilitation at the Shepherd Center, a nationally recognized facility specializing in spinal cord and brain injuries, when the Harmon family met a Georgia couple who had received an agricultural service dog named Skippy through PHARM Dog USA.
The couple quickly recognized how a similar dog could benefit Thomas, a young farmer facing a new set of physical limitations after his accident.
“They kept telling me Thomas needs one of these dogs,” Debbie said. “They reached out to Jackie and talked to her about Thomas being a young farmer and how he would benefit from a farm dog.”
Those conversations eventually connected the Harmons with Jackie Allenbrand, founder and director of PHARM Dog USA. What followed was a two-year process of waiting, watching photographs and following Zac’s progress through his training.
Debbie said the family was initially hesitant, unsure what to expect from the program and whether everything would work out.
“I had a lot of questions, and we weren’t sure about it at first,” she said. “We did not tell Thomas because I didn’t want to get his hopes up and then something fall through.”
For the family, the possibility of a farm dog meant more than having another set of hands, or paws, in the pasture. It offered Thomas an opportunity to become more involved in the work that had been part of his family’s life for generations.
Tailored for the pasture
Allenbrand founded the PHARM Dog program after years of working with AgrAbility, a USDA-sponsored program assisting agricultural workers with disabilities. Seeing how cattle dogs could offset physical limitations, she realized no organization in the country was dedicated specifically to training dogs for farmers with mobility impairments or chronic illnesses.
“I worked with an organization called AgrAbility, and I had already started thinking on how to use the dogs for farmers because my husband and I always used dogs,” Allenbrand said. “I had talked to a farmer with a partial leg amputation, and he was telling me about his border collie, Weasel. He said, ‘I just have to sit at the gate, and I can send Weasel to go get the cattle, he drives them up and then all I have to do is shut the gate.’ So I got to thinking, that could save time and energy. And I started doing research and found there’s no other organization that specifically trains dogs for farmers with an illness or disability.”
Operating on grants and private donations, the nonprofit covers all upfront costs, including veterinary care, professional training, grooming and food.
Zac’s journey began in Tonganoxie, Kansas, where he was donated as a puppy by Virgil Miles — the very same donor who provided the program’s first dog back in 2009. From there, Zac spent a year with volunteer puppy raiser Liz West learning basic manners, household etiquette and socialization around children. He then moved to Packwood, Iowa, to train under stock dog trainer Don McKay, honing his instincts around goats, longhorn cattle and regular trips into retail stores to ensure steady public focus.
Unlike standard service dogs, agricultural dogs must master a dual role: managing heavy livestock while remaining sharply tuned to their handler’s physical safety.
“The main thing that Zac has been trained for is to help with livestock — to herd them into paddocks or other pastures, or watch a gate,” Allenbrand said. “A lot of times we train for watching a gate because a farmer will go in to feed, and you don’t want the cattle to run back out and run over the farmer if he’s bucket feeding. That was the focus on training for Zac.”
Beyond cattle work, Zac is trained to mitigate Thomas’s fall risks.
“Thomas has a brace on, and he can bend down, but the possibility of him falling over... this is a benefit of Zac being able to pick up things to make sure that Thomas doesn’t fall over and hurt himself,” Debbie said.
Zac has also learned specialized safety tasks, including sounding a doorbell to alert the family inside the house if Thomas ever takes a fall or needs emergency assistance in the yard.
Looking ahead
Over the weekend, McKay and Allenbrand worked alongside Thomas on the Harmon property, running herding drills and helping the two learn one another’s commands before heading back north.
The transition will take time. Zac is still becoming accustomed to Thomas as his handler, but both are beginning to settle into their new routine.
“He’s getting more comfortable with me,” Thomas said. “He’s more comfortable with Mr. Don, obviously. But when Mr. Don leaves, he’ll fall into being more comfortable for sure.”
For Thomas, the hope is that their partnership will eventually allow him to handle more of the cattle work himself, from moving herds between pastures to helping gather calves for processing. But the benefits of Zac’s arrival aren’t limited to the pasture.
“It’ll be nice for me just to have someone to hang out with,” Thomas said.
That companionship is already taking shape. Zac has begun spending his nights in Thomas’s room, a sight that has been especially meaningful for Debbie.
“Thomas is a dog lover, and Zac is actually staying down in his room at night,” she said. “I went in, and the two of them — he was sitting there, and Zac was looking at him, and he was petting his head. It’s just going to be a sweet companionship and a relationship they’ll have for a long time.”
Debbie said she’s excited to see how the partnership develops, particularly as Thomas explores new ways to become involved in the farm again.
For a family accustomed to working cattle together, Zac represents the possibility of Thomas finding his place in that routine once more — this time with a four-legged partner by his side.
For more information about PHARM Dog USA, visit www.pharmdog.org or find the organization on Facebook.
