GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Dog showing is a huge commitment that requires time, money, training and major dedication. It’s a commitment West Michigan native Monica Adair knows well.

“I got my first show dog when I was 16,” Adair said. 

She’s been showing dogs for over 40 years. Her two dogs, Daisy and Fanny, are Kerry Blue Terriers. The 7- and 2-year-old pups are cousins, descended from the very first Kerry Blue that Adair and her husband Kevin bought before they got married in 1982.

Adair’s goal was to have them compete in their national dog show specialty at the Montgomery Kennel Club show. She was working to get them trained together when the unexpected happened.

“I woke up (on a) Thursday morning, and just felt weird,” Adair told News 8. “My husband was like, ‘Do you have to go to the hospital?’ And I said, ‘No, just go to work. Just go to work.’ He has very flexible hours and he kind of got dressed slowly, and thank goodness he did, because by two o’clock in the afternoon, I was so dizzy and started vomiting and just felt weird.”

Around 3pm that Thursday in July, her husband called an ambulance. She explained that at first doctors thought she had gastroenteritis, but after about 45 minutes and some advocating from her husband, doctors realized what was happening.

“No one was more surprised than I that I had a stroke,” Adair said. 

The stroke impacted the right side of her body, her dominant side. She spent 6 days at the hospital before being transferred to Mary Free Bed for 10 days of inpatient therapy, and over two months of outpatient therapy. One of the first things therapists ask patients when they arrive is what their goals are. That was an easy answer for Adair. 

“Her big goal was to get back to doing the dog shows,” said Ashton Kowalski, an occupational therapist at Mary Free Bed. “She had one that was coming up just weeks after I had met her and so she was a little bit nervous about being able to do that.”

Adair said the therapists were “miraculous”, pushing her hard with compassion to reach her goals.

“We worked a lot in session on the foundational skills for grooming dogs and at the dog shows and then we even got a little creative about getting back to grooming,” Kowalski explained. “We talked about cutting intricate shapes out of the paper to just like manipulate the scissors or repetitive cutting to work on the endurance. We worked on a lot of standing endurance in session and dynamic balance, so that when she goes and shows her dogs and does her routine, that she has good balance and endurance throughout.”

Less than three months after her stroke, Adair and her husband loaded up the car and headed to Pennsylvania for the competition. 

“Sunday is the biggest day. It’s the largest all-terrier show in the world and we have people from all over the world that ship their dogs in, that fly in, and it’s a huge deal in the dog show world,” Adair explained. 

Daisy and Fanny were shown in a special class called brace, which means showing two dogs at the same time. 

 “All of my team knew that that was my goal, was to get those two in the ring together. So we did that Sunday morning, and they had never been worked together, and they just kind of fell into step,” Adair beamed. 

She was nervous about running in the ring with them, considering she had just regained her ability to run a few weeks prior. 

“The last couple of go-rounds, I was having to tell my legs, ‘You have to move.'”

Despite not having been able to train them or condition their coats for two months, Daisy and Fanny won their breed and went on to win Best in Show brace, the highest award in that category of the competition. 

“After 42 years of breeding these dogs, it was the thrill of a lifetime,” Adair said. 

She added that it wouldn’t have been possible without her team. 

“Even up to the day that we were leaving, I was pretty skeptical about even driving 13 hours out to Philadelphia and Kevin was encouraging. Hayley, my (physical therapist), was very encouraging. She just said, I know you can do this. Ashton and Megan were fabulous.”

Kowalski said she’ll never forget the session when Adair came in and told her what she’d accomplished. 

“She got to socialize, she got to be part of the show, and she had her support team there. And not only that, but she also won Best in Show, and both of us started crying tears of joy,” Kowalski said, choked up. “Our patients really do become like family and so when she told me her goals, they became my goals as well and so to see that success and flourish … that meant the world to me.”

Even on the hard days, Adair said it was her dogs and her husband that kept her going. 

“Kevin has cancer and so we’ve kind of been dealing with that. He’s stable now, but I don’t want him to have the burden of having to take care of them totally,” Adair said. “That was a huge motivator, but more than that, we just have too much life to live still. At my age. I don’t feel my age that much and I just think of all the things that I still have to do, and that was the biggest motivator. And not leaving Kevin after 45 years.”

She also offered a message to anyone else working to overcome health challenges of their own.

“Give it your all,” Adair said. “If you give up, if you fight your therapy, you know … it’s all on you, your recovery. So please just take heart and do the work and see how far you can come.”