Today we end a chapter.

However, we hope to begin a new one in the story of Elle.

We met Elle more than a year ago and immediately took a liking to her. She became a friend during some dark times last year and has remained a friend.

When we started the Doggy Doubts series we had no idea how it would end. Today we have a better idea from the last two sessions, the last one involving rrspin.com coverage ending today with another successful round with Elle and Dylan Blount, a 6-year-old boy who puts many of us to shame with his reading skills, but like many of us, has his fears, his demons, his hangups.

Dylan shows a page.

This little boy's fear happened to be of dogs and from the moment Leah Brewer started the Tail Wagging Tales program at the Roanoke Rapids Library, we wanted to follow this story.

We think we saw ourselves in Dylan, an overprotected youngster who needs to be a boy, who needs to experience the things little boys experience, skinned knees from climbing trees, dirt and mud under his fingernails and the companionship of a dog.

Since the first time in December we followed this story, we have watched a boy grow, we took one hit for even writing this series but to us it was compelling in a couple of ways.

Elle.

For those just joining the story, Elle is a therapy dog. Oh, she happens to be a therapy dog who is an American Pit Bull Terrier.

Brewer, her owner, wanted to take Elle and show the area that this breed can be just as adorable and friendly as the highly bragged on Chocolate labs, the retrievers, the poodles, the collies and other dogs people favor over the much maligned pit bull.

The thing people don't understand is it's not really Elle's breed that makes her special, it is the time, the hard work, the patience her owner has put into making Elle a therapy dog that makes her a cut above the rest. The commitment could have been done with a sheepdog or St. Bernard, but Brewer, who overcame the myths the media has put out for the public to consume and take for gospel, has developed this dog into an area, if not regional, ambassador for the breed.

Brewer and Elle.

It was Elle who visited the Roanoke Rapids Police Department to comfort officers who last October witnessed the bad side of dogs following the Calvin Champion story.

Elle is working at the Boys and Girls Club and the Bayberry, not necessarily for what she was born as, but what she has become.

The Tail Wagging Tales sessions have taken Dylan to a point where really Brewer and Elle can do little more but let the boy overcome his last shreds of fears, which session by session have slowly diminished to him still being irritated by the dog licking and still having some issues with the dog looking him in the face,

A pet on the head before parting.

We are satisfied, however, the boy will shake these phobias and move on.

In the past two sessions the boy has walked the dog like he had been walking her all his life.

Now we feel, once the family finds a suitable place to live and not an apartment in which they are currently in, they have to take that step and move ahead with getting a puppy, not just for Dylan, but the whole family to enjoy and nurture. It is something we feel will make the boy's confidence even stronger and make him appreciate more the investment of time Brewer has put into the program.

We're not completely saying goodbye to Tail Wagging Tales or Brewer or Dylan, we just feel there is nothing more to report on and that we have witnessed firsthand what this program can do.

We're definitely not saying goodbye to Elle, because, as the first media source to report on her accomplishments, we feel a certain investment in her and a desire to see what this wonder dog, with a bloodline from a maligned underdog, is going to accomplish next.

Good job Elle, good job Dylan and good, no, exceptional job Leah — Lance Martin

For more information on Tail Wagging Tales contact the library at 252-533-2890.