The Golden Retriever national specialty was a few weeks away, and Roberta “Bobbi” Hockenberry prepared for the event as she had for many years past — brushing up on obedience exercises, washing dog laundry, and cleaning her van.
But this year’s competition would look different for Hockenberry. Since her left leg was amputated in October 2024, Hockenberry would use a wheelchair while handling “Syd,” her Golden Retriever, in obedience.
Syd (OTCH Trifecta’s Forever Grateful UDX2 OM5 RN MH23 WCX CCA OBHF **) is more than Hockenberry’s talented teammate. Since the amputation, the 7-year-old Golden has instinctively taken on the role of a service dog without any prior training in that field. She assists her owner in nearly every aspect of daily living — such as carrying crutches, retrieving dropped items, accompanying her on doctor’s appointments, and providing emotional support.
“As many things as Syd does, she has yet to be able to do my laundry or wash my car,” she jokes.
Most importantly, Syd enables Hockenberry to continue doing what she loves the most: teaching at her dog-training school in Newell, West Virginia, and competing in obedience, field trials, and hunt tests.
Syd is the 2025 winner of the AKC Humane Fund Award for Canine Excellence in the Exemplary Companion category. Dogs who’ve earned this designation aren’t formally trained in service or therapy work, but have gone to notable lengths to better the lives of their owners or communities.
“I love all my dogs, and I think any one of my dogs would walk through fire if I asked them to,” Hockenberry says. “[Syd] just does stuff because she thinks it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Learning to Trust Syd’s Intuition
Hockenberry has lived with Goldens since 1988 — but she believes Syd chose to live with her.
She bred “Icy,” one of her Goldens, and was deciding which of the two puppies from the litter to keep. But at 5 weeks old, one of the puppies had a bad reaction to a dewormer and needed immediate medical care. As Hockenberry rushed to the vet, she told herself that if this puppy survived, it would live the rest of its life in her home. The puppy was Syd — she pulled through, and the decision of which puppy to keep was made.
“I believe Syd chose me to live with,” Hockenberry says, “and that was her way of saying, ‘I’m going to live here with you, whether you like it or not.'”
It wasn’t long before Hockenberry noticed a sensitivity and intuition that distinguished Syd from the other Goldens she’d had over the decades. When Syd was 9 months old, Hockenberry, who ran a board-and-train kennel at the time, took in a tough-case Labrador Retriever who needed placement. As a friend arrived with the dog, Syd bounced happily alongside Hockenberry to greet them. But as soon as the Lab stepped out of the truck, Syd turned tail to wait by the house instead of engaging with the dog.
“In retrospect, Syd obviously read that dog better than I did, because I had that dog back me into the corner aggressively more times than I care to remember,” Hockenberry recalls.
She learned an important lesson from that day: “When this dog speaks, I should listen.”
‘Syd,’ the Surrogate and the Empath
Hockenberry began trusting Syd’s sensitive nature in her training business, where many pet owners seek her help with tough behavioral cases. When a new client brings a dog for evaluation, Hockenberry brings Syd into the training area to interact with it.
“I let Syd tell me what is the real temperament of this dog,” she explains. If Syd is bouncy and wants to engage, Hockenberry is optimistic that the client’s dog can overcome its struggles. But if Syd backs away, ignores the dog, or lies down somewhere, Hockenberry will proceed more cautiously, recognizing that the dog’s behavior is more severe.
“I consider her an empath,” says Linda Romanelli, Hockenberry’s close friend and business partner. “She just senses things immediately.”
This came into play one evening in 2023, when Hockenberry saw a Facebook post from a friend desperately seeking help for a Belgian Malinois puppy. The dam had a C-section and rejected the puppy, refusing to nurse it. Hockenberry didn’t know the breeder, but Syd had whelped a litter four days earlier — and she trusted that Syd could step in as a surrogate.
“I was not going to guarantee that Syd would take that puppy, but I would say I was 99.9% sure that she would,” Hockenberry says. She slowly introduced Syd to “Mink,” the Malinois puppy, and integrated her into Syd’s litter of nine. “Three hours later, it was Syd’s puppy. … She raised that puppy just like she raised the other ones.”
“There was just no hesitation on Bobbi’s part,” Romanelli says. “When I saw her belief in what Syd’s capabilities were, I was a believer.”
An Operation — and Complications — Change Her Life
Dogs are Hockenberry’s life and livelihood — whether competing at the highest levels with her own dogs, leading master-class obedience seminars around the country, or helping new pet owners have the best relationship with their canine companions.
And for years, Hockenberry competed and ran her business while dealing with rheumatoid arthritis. Her feet especially gave her trouble, so in June 2024, she had surgery to alleviate the pain in her left foot.
“When you go to the doctor, you know what they tell you,” Hockenberry says. “This could happen. That could happen. Something else could happen.”
Well, she says, it all happened.
First, the foot surgery. She contracted a MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infection in the hospital, then went septic. The surgeon placed a rod in her leg to try to save it, but she developed another infection. By October 2024, her doctor finally amputated her leg above the knee, considering it the best option to get her back to doing what she loves most.
After the amputation, Hockenberry reflected that she would try to be more like her dogs, despite her new limitations — dogs don’t overthink things, she says.
“If you amputate a dog’s leg, what do they do? They just wake up and say, ‘Hey, I had four legs. What the hell’s going on here? Where’s my ball?'” Hockenberry jokes.
In that vein, Hockenberry says, she’s not an amputee — she’s a “tripawd.”
From Sport Dog to Service Dog
Hockenberry was determined to get back to training and trialing, but adjusting to life as an amputee proved more difficult than she’d expected. Doctors fitted her for a prosthetic leg, but due to damage in her right knee, she is more comfortable using crutches or a wheelchair. Stairs are a daily challenge — there are 13 steps to her building’s entrance, and her training gym is upstairs.
Yet there was never a moment where Hockenberry decided to intentionally train Syd as her service dog — the transition happened gradually and instinctively. Hockenberry shares a deep connection with all her Goldens, but Syd relates to her on a level that’s “really almost human,” Romanelli says.
“She is right there all the time,” Hockenberry says. “All I have to do is say, ‘Syd!’ and usually, if I just say ‘Syd,’ she’s standing up, and she’s got those ears for, ‘What do you want?'”
Hockenberry’s requests were simple, at first — retrieving objects from another room or picking up dropped items. Syd seemed to understand what Hockenberry was asking even without formal service dog training.
Today, Hockenberry relies on Syd for “pretty much everything,” she says. Syd accompanies her on doctor visits, where she lies beside her during blood draws (and accepts belly rubs from other patients and staff). To climb the steps to her home, Hockenberry balances with one hand on the stair rail and another on a crutch. Syd carries her bag and her “stick” (crutch) up and down the stairs. When Hockenberry showers, Syd waits beside her and picks up any items she’s dropped.
“She’s just unusual in that she just does what needs to be done,” she says. “She never looks like, ‘Oh my God, you’re gonna ask me to carry the sticks up the steps again?'”
Hockenberry isn’t one to dwell on the past or feel sorry for herself, but the weight of her new reality can take an emotional toll. On days when she’s feeling discouraged or upset about her circumstances, Syd’s there, offering tender support.
“I look down, and there she is — she’s got her head laying in my lap,” she says. “…She’s just there, just like, ‘We got this.'”
Navigating a New Normal
With the unwavering support of her friends and Syd, Hockenberry returned to obedience competition in August of this year.
AKC rules and regulations allow disabled handlers to compete with accommodations, as long as the modifications don’t aid in the dog’s performance. For Hockenberry, this means using a wheelchair in the obedience ring and a stool for field trials and hunt tests. Syd and Hockenberry’s other dogs seamlessly adapted to these changes. “Heel position is heel position,” she says.
She holds herself to the same level of performance as she did before the amputation. “I don’t want what I do to detract from my dog, and I don’t want to be the center of attention,” she says. “I want you to see my dogs heeling with attention. I want you to see them race out to pick up their dumbbell. I want you to see them look at me with that ‘God, I’m so glad to be alive!’ look that they give you, and if I don’t have that, then I’m not going to do it.”
For Hockenberry, this philosophy goes beyond the obedience ring, as she never expected Syd to become a service dog. “Had she not stepped up and done this, I wouldn’t think any less of her,” she says.
But because Syd chose this role — as teammate, service dog, and companion — Hockenberry is forever grateful.
“I wouldn’t be able to do anything without either my dogs or my friends,” Hockenberry says. “I don’t know what I’d do without my dogs. There’d be no reason to get up in the morning.”