Meet Mark and service dog Cruiser
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Mark Beasley and service dog Cruiser
Big Cove, Alabama
Mark and Cruiser stand together on a gravel path.
Air Force veteran Mark Beasley made it through six years as a transportation specialist, but it was after he was honorably discharged from the Air Force that he had to learn to walk again. An accident in 2011 took his right leg, and Mark spent all that year learning to use a prosthetic leg. He is constantly frustrated by dropping things. “When you can’t bend your ankle to squat and pick something up, what do you do?” he asks. Cruiser, his new yellow Labrador service dog, knows the answer.
During training, Mark accidentally knocked his wallet off of a table and before he could pick it up, Cruiser already had the wallet in his mouth and gave it back to him. “It was really satisfying,” Mark says, fighting back emotion.
“It’s overwhelming how smart and well-trained Cruiser is,” Mark says. “I was very intimidated to get a service dog. I wondered if the dog would like me, or if I could even do it because of my leg.” He soon found out that Cruiser can help him with the stairs in his two-story home. “The stairs were the bane of my existence,” Mark says. He loves hiking, and with Cruiser’s help, he has big plans to conquer a difficult hike. “He’s going to be my handrail for the trail,” Marks shares, smiling broadly.
Cruiser is sponsored and named by Joe and Ruth Rubinfine.
