Alyssa McCloskey | Daily Press Lucky, winner of the Daily Press Pet Idol contest, and his owner Emily Meader are shown. Lucky is a service dog for Meader, who lives with a cardiac disorder.

ESCANABA — A service dog named Lucky is the winner of the Daily Press 2018 Pet Idol Contest.

Lucky’s owner, Emily Meader, 19, of Gladstone, lives with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a cardiac disorder that causes low blood pressure, which makes the heart work harder to pump blood through the body. It can induce many symptoms including loss of consciousness.

The contest was run for three rounds from May 17 until July 25 when the top three pets were selected. Daily Press readers were encouraged to vote for their favorite pet participating in the contest. The Daily Press promotion benefits the Newspapers In Education program. NIE is a non-profit program sustained through fundraising events and contests, local business sponsors and Daily Press subscribers. The goal of NIE is to promote literacy by bringing newspapers into the classroom to keep students informed, motivated, and interested in reading. The Pet Idol is just one of the promotions the Daily Press circulation department conducts to raise money for NIE. Lucky took first place out of 31 participants in this year’s contest.

Meader was surprised to learn that Lucky had gotten first place.

She credits the accomplishment, in part, to the community. “He (Lucky) is well-known in the community,” said Meader.

He is a frequent visitor to Menards and Elmers, where he is a favorite among the workers there.

To Meader, Lucky truly is a Pet Idol. In addition to being a great service dog, he is also a great pet and companion, according to Meader.

“He cares so much about me, Lucky is beyond loyal,” she said.

Meader trained Lucky herself when she began to struggle with anxiety.

“It started with basic obedience, and then I realized he picked up on things really well,” she said.

She did some research on training service dogs and found that she could use Lucky’s trainability to her benefit. Six months into Lucky’s training, Meader was diagnosed with POTS. She began training Lucky to recognize commands that focused on aiding her with the symptoms caused by her disorder. These commands include pulling her arm when she gets fatigued and tapping her hand when her heart starts to race.

Meader stresses the importance of putting in the time and effort to train a service dog yourself. There are accreditation courses available online which people can use to train a service dog, yet those dogs then become a hazard when not properly trained for on the job type situations, she explains, adding “there is a big problem with buying online certificates.”

What should people be aware of when encountering a service dog at work?

She says when you see a service dog out in public, understand these animals are working and are not acting in the pet role that you would normally associate with dogs.

She says Lucky’s extreme devotion to her is what makes him a true pet idol.