A golden retriever has been trained as a laboratory assistant to its disabled owner – and even has to wear canine PPE.
Service dog Sampson dons the safety gear as he helps disabled neuroscientist Joey Ramp conduct her crucial lab work every day.
Joey, 56, suffered traumatic head injuries following a serious riding accident in 2006 and returned to education to gain a better understanding of the human brain.
Sampson, dressed in goggles and a lab coat, is the first ever canine to be granted access to a chemistry laboratory at The University of Illinois.
"If I drop something in the lab he'll come to my side and I can use him as a brace to kneel down and pick up what I need," said the former horse trainer, of Champagne, Illinois.
Sampson is also on hand to spot signs and react to Joey's PTSD as result of the catastrophic head injuries suffered after she and her horse took a fall.
She suffered 23 broken bones including a fractured eye socket, cheekbone, two vertebrae, jaw and collar bone and was left with permanent brain and nerve damage to the left side of her body after the polo accident.
Joey now holds two BA degrees in the neuroscience and is working towards her PhD with Sampson's help around the lab.
She added: "I couldn't possibly navigate academics or a neuroscience program without his assistance.
"There's more focus on the dog than the service they are providing and they were barring an entire population of students from entering lab work and ultimately the STEM field."
This became the drive for Joey to start advocating for service dogs to be allowed into laboratories and creating guidelines to make it happen.
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Guidelines include dogs having to wear the same lab PPE that humans wear and being in the direct line of sight of their handler at all times.
They must also have a rubber-backed matt and be trained to lie on it for up to four hours, out of the way of lab traffic, and learn to retrieve things on command instead of automatically.
Joey and Sampson now work with universities globally to help them adopt the guidelines and introduce more service dogs into the labs.
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"It takes the mystery out of what a service dog does and how you can accommodate them in a lab," she said.
"It also gives handlers an idea of what training their dog requires, because learning to wear goggles takes time."
Joey includes the PPE routine in Sampson's everyday life to keep him acclimated to his work attire.
"If we're not in the lab for a while I'll put the goggles on and we'll go out and play frisbee and he'll run around," she said.
Outside of work, Sampson is a regular golden retriever, who loves to roll in mud and play fetch.
"He's just a normal dog when we're home and he's playing," Joey added.
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