Gabrielle Ford speaks to students at Barre Town School on Thursday about the effects bullying had on her. Accompanying Ford is her dog, Izzy. Photo: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur/Times Argus

By Daphne Larkin Times Argus Staff

BARRE TOWN – Bullying happens and it has profound lifelong effects. That is the message that Gabrielle Ford and her dog Izzy – famous for their Animal Planet appearances on an episode of "Pet Story" – brought to Barre Town middle school students Thursday.

Ford, who at the age of 12 was diagnosed with Friedreich's ataxia, a rare neuromuscular disease, knows firsthand about bullying, as do some of the students at the school who hired her to travel from her home in Michigan to speak about her experiences.

Ford and her dog, known collectively as "Gabe and Izzy," became famous after the cable television show learned of their story of symbiotic diseases. Izzy, an AKC registered black and tan coon hound, was diagnosed with a rare degenerative muscular condition about a year after Ford got her as a puppy.

Since 2001 Gabe and Izzy's story has run on Animal Planet 64 times and the pair has traveled across the country visiting schools to tell Ford's story of bullying and her relationship with her best friend.

"I think that every school and everyone has been bullied before in some shape or form," said 13-year-old Stephanie Brassand, a Barre Town eighth-grader who helped organize the day's events.

"I thought it was important to educate the school … before it becomes a big problem," said Barre Town eighth-grader, Audrey Grubb, 14. Brassand and Grubb are two of seven middle school students who helped organize the bullying-awareness presentation as part of a community service learning project. The group of seventh- and eighth-graders were inspired by a leadership training program four of the students attended at the Vermont Principal's Association.

The group decided to follow up a bullying presentation last year put on by John Halligan, the father of 13-year-old Ryan Halligan, the Essex boy who committed suicide in 2004 as a result of being bullied.

Twelve-year-old Taisha Pelkey, a Barre Town seventh-grader, is another one of the seven student organizers. Pelkey, who is hearing-impaired, said she used to get teased because her speech would "get messed up."

Likewise, 12-year-old Mindy Keene, also a Barre Town seventh-grader and group organizer, used to get called names when she was younger.

"It made me feel excluded," Keene explained. "It made me feel like I didn't belong in this school, like people didn't like me…and I was an outcast."

Twenty-seven-year old Ford still recalls the bullying she endured beginning in eighth-grade in a brand new school in Michigan as her disease changed her body and her abilities.

Ford sat in her wheelchair in front of the gymnasium full of students at the noon assembly in the Barre Town School with her seven-year-old dog lying next to her. She later did another presentation as well.

Ford said she became more clumsy and simple tasks, like opening her locker combination or picking her books up off the floor after having them knocked out of her arms by other students, took longer.

"I would say the most hurtful kind of bullying is calling names," Ford told the group of seventh and eighth graders.

Ford told the students how she coped with getting hit with "spit wads," getting tripped as she struggled to walk down the school halls, getting called names and myriad other abuses from her classmates. Ford said she shut down; she shut out the feelings she was having and kept the pain to herself.

"What got (my mother's) attention was one day I came home with bruises on my legs," Ford said. "This boy at my school got some satisfaction from hitting my legs."

Ford had wanted to shield her mother from her pain and keep the fact that kids didn't like her to herself, and found herself negotiating with her mother.

Her mother agreed to go into the school after hours and meet with the principal, who acted promptly to intervene with the boy who hit her legs. Ford met with the boy, explained how his actions hurt her, explained about her illness and reduced the number of bullies against her in the school by one.

Ford explained how she graduated from high school and eventually fell into a major depression that kept her in her room for the next five years as friends fell away and ceased to return her phone calls. She became agoraphobic. But her mother, Rhona Hillman, agreed to let her daughter get a dog on the conditions Ford would be completely physically and financially responsible for the pet.

Izzy, whose registered name is "Building a Mystery," and her medical issues forced Ford out of her home and back into the public.

"It took me that long to get over my fears," Ford said. "It didn't matter what my mother would say to me … I had to learn that I shouldn't be ashamed to go out in public."

Today Ford is adamant that she forgives those who bullied her and she believes bullying hurts both parties involved; it hurts the person being bullied and the bully usually learns later in life that it was wrong.

"Feeling guilty about something is not a good feeling," Ford said.

Ford has learned that her story can bring changes in schools across the country.

"We hear that this is the best assembly the students and staff have ever seen," Ford's mother, Hillman, told a reporter. "It's because it's a true-life story… the kids can feel it and understand … which makes kids less likely to bully."

Barre Town students saw palpable changes in their environment after last year's presentation, which is why they followed up with "Gabe and Izzy."

"I know that it's gotten better since the assembly (last year) but people are still excluding," Keene said.

Keene and the rest of her group have worked on school-wide discussion questions with their guidance counselor, Ry Hoffman, a major force for bullying prevention in the school, according to his colleagues. The students have analyzed a self-esteem scale and learned that bullies usually feel bad about themselves.

After Ford's presentation the students spent the rest of the day learning more about bullying-prevention techniques, and as the students filed past Ford and Izzy on their way to classroom, they patted the coon hound as she laid peacefully, her hound eyes drooping.

"Always tell somebody (about bullying)," Ford instructed. "Talking about it can make you feel better and if somebody hears it's going on it needs to be reported because maybe it can be stopped."

Contact Daphne Larkin at (802) 479-0191 ext.1171 or daphne.larkin@timesargus.com.