:Hey, it's Melody. I think we're fine here, Leareth just panicked about the shower accidentally being cold and then made it worse by hitting his head but the ambulance people don't think he's seriously hurt. They said I should get him a dog? Because some dogs are good for panic attacks? I thought you'd be the person to ask about that: 

:Some dogs are bred for support with issues like that, yes. They do require onboarding, has he trained dogs before?:

:I have no idea but he's done enough things in his life that I wouldn't be surprised! Is there guidance on how to do it, or textbooks or anything?: 

:Well, yes, but you can't read Kayshu:

:Not yet but he's working hard at it! He was on the computer tutorial for ages today: 

:It would probably take quite a while of working on the language to be able to read a dog training manual but I can look into it and see how complicated it is and how much you can outsource it:

:Right. I figured it might also be cheaper to get someone to 'read' a book to Leareth in Mindspeech, have it double as language practice, rather than paying a specialized dog trainer? ...Er, also, before I forgot, quick question. I - can't actually read the labels on the sample meds that were sent over: 

:Oh, of course, I'll come by in an hour and read those for you and look into dog breeds:

:Great! Sounds good: 

Melody settles herself as comfortably as she can against the landing beside the bathroom door - sometimes Leareth prefers if people are nearby but not actually in line of site - and sings quietly, and intermittently checks if he needs anything and if he's willing to try getting up and relocating to his much more comfortable bed. 

About 45 minutes later, Leareth can be coaxed to get up and make his slightly unsteady way down the hall to his bed, where he immediately curls up, and then very quietly asks if he can have something warm to drink. 

Melody brings him some tea and then sits at the top of the stairs to sip her own tea and wait for Dree. 

Dree shows up in an hour as expected and knocks!

Melody Mindtouches Leareth to let him know that she's going downstairs to talk to Dree, and then heads down to let her in. :Thanks for coming back. Sorry we've been taking up so much of your time today: 

"It's okay! This is my job, and I'm actually no longer taking new clients for now because you seem likely to be high-support-need for a while." She can read the medicine packets - they have names on them and there's a separate instruction sheet indicating which ones to try in what order depending on effect profiles. It says that most people won't need all these pills but they're packaged together to make it easy to find what works. They can go to more expensive options if the trial doesn't turn up anything worth sticking to, and here is how you order more of whatever you want more of.

It's so helpful! Melody takes her own notes on a separate 'instruction sheet' and just copies over the first three letter shapes of each drug name, which she cannot read. She thanks Dree for the information. 

:Are there any that definitely shouldn't be combined, even just pairwise? In case I try one and it turns out not to work very much and he still can't sleep tonight: 

The instruction sheet includes that information! The first three are all safe together and some people apparently take all of them in a combined pill.

Huh! Well, she's not going to assume that Leareth will react exactly the same way that the local humans do, so she'll be cautious. 

:And - dog breeds? I've been mulling it over and I think it's a really good idea. Even apart from the support, he'd probably benefit a lot from an animal he could pet. I'm worried he's going to get really touch starved - which, I mean, he was before any of the war things happened, and was apparently fine, but it seems less fine now: 

"Well, let me find a good dog quiz." She gets online and finds a dog quiz! Dog purposes: emotional support, snuggles, anything else?

Wow, she's not sure! Melody has never had dogs! In Velgarth people use them for...hunting, or defending their homes against thieves, or herding their livestock. Presumably none of these apply? Well, Leareth might find it reassuring to have a guard-dog, but Melody once had a neighbor with one and she does NOT want to be randomly woken up by the dog working up a midnight rage at random ducks, and that seems bad for Leareth too. 

What else do dogs do here? 

...guardian dogs that wake people up over ducks would be terrible and Dree plans to get a dog that isn't terrible. She can check "guardian".

Dogs can do various errands and chores, turn soil, pull carts or carry bags, take care of other animals, compensate for missing senses, track scents, learn acrobatic tricks, race, and do certain diagnostics.

That's really neat! Plausibly it would be good for Leareth to have a dog that could help carry things and do errands? Actually, for in-the-house errands in particular it would be really good, probably - Leareth needs food brought to him, for example, or he mostly won't eat. 

Okay, so they want a generalist dog, emphasis on the chores and emotional support. Next questions on the quiz are - drool tolerance? Energy level (and corresponding exercise requirements)? General disposition? Size?

Melody thinks dog drool is disgusting but it's not her dog, she's sure Leareth would be fine with it. She would incidentally also prefer a dog that does less hair-shedding everywhere; it doesn't make her sneeze like it does some people, it's just gross. Probably they want a very calm dog that doesn't react a lot to non-dangerous things? Exercise requirements: she thinks it would be good for Leareth to get outside for a walk a couple of times a day, though he might have to work up to it, she doesn't mind doing some of the dog-taking-out in the meantime. She vaguely suspects he would like a bigger dog if it's also calm and non-scary. (She's thinking of Huan.) 

Okay! The dog quiz has some suggestions now, each with a selection of photos with objects for scale. Large chill dogs that don't shed too much for generalist mostly-indoor purposes: there's this curly black kind, this bearish one that comes in brown and white splodges, this gray kind, this kind with barely any fur that's red with a cream belly.

Ooh, the bearish one and the very-short-haired one are both cute! They should probably show Leareth the options, though. 

:Leareth? Do you think you're up for looking at pictures of dogs?: