Lex Lodestar
Lodestar Second Responder (L2R) · Chief Nervous System Regulator
Lex is a Lodestar Second Responder (L2R), a trained service dog and valued member of our team whose role is to be a steady, four-legged presence in rooms filled with high-performing and highly depleted human beings, helping everyone to feel neurobiologically less alone.
He accomplishes this, primarily, by leaning on people.
This is not a metaphor.
Lex locates the person(s) in the room who need him, sidles up alongside, and leans his considerable weight against their legs with a calm, steady, unhurried pressure that functions –, and there is no more precise way to say this – like a weighted blanket who found you on purpose.
People don't always see it coming, the impact his calming presence has on their nervous system. They are universally grateful for the experience.
Lex travels with Dr. K, working the full range of Lodestar service lines, professions, and engagements. While the titles, credentials, and roles of the humans in the room change from one event to the next, what doesn't change is all the things they're carrying: the accumulated weight of doing hard, meaningful work within systems that were not designed to sustain them.
Lex doesn't need to know their specialty – he knows their nervous system.
His full name is Aleksander Varuh Zvest Straža Lodestar Sarachova, which translates from Slovenian (via Canine) into English as: Alexander the Guardian, Faithful Sentinel of Lodestar Sarachova.
He finds the name eyeroll-worthy and answers to Lex.
Lex was discovered in Slovenia after an eight-month search for a dog capable of meeting very specific requirements: the temperament to work in high-stakes professional environments with high-performing humans in extreme circumstances; the steadiness to live on a chaotic working farm with four hundred-plus pounds of other dogs, and a rotating cast of barn cats, sheep, cattle, and boys; and the focus to honor the seriousness of his work without becoming precious about it.
When the vest is on, Lex is attentive, attuned, and extraordinarily present. His calm isn't passive; it is a deliberate choice. When the vest comes off, he is seventy-five pounds of focused exuberance who will play stick until your arm falls off, run circles around four dogs twice his size, and fall asleep in approximately thirty seconds.
He holds a Lodestar Second Responder certification, a Slovenian passport, and a number of strong opinions he keeps (mostly) to himself.
Lex travels with Dr. Sarraf for Lodestar program delivery. He is a working service dog, and Dr. K takes time for specific introductions and rules of engagement at the outset of any program he attends. As with any service animal, please remember to ask permission before approaching.