Hallie Wells: “I think what’s important for me with assistance dogs–so that covers the realm of service dogs and guide dogs–is that there are so many different aspects of it, and it’s not just cookie cutter training. Not that training ever is, but there might be someone that needs autism support, but they also might need light guiding tasks, or there might be someone who has a psychiatric service dog, but they also need some counterbalance support. So, I really love that you can really customize the dog training and the service dog training to suit their partner’s needs and accommodate what they’re looking for to gain that independence and have that partnership with their service dog.”

Hallie Wells: “There was initially pushback, and I think it was just based on fear of not knowing. Whether it was from my volunteers or my staff, we just kind of faced that confrontation and those fears head on. Like yeah, ‘I know this is hard. It’s scary. It’s extremely difficult to change your skillset.’ But once people started noticing that they were able to tell their dog ‘Yes’ and give them information more and do it through a positive manner, they noticed their puppies were learning things faster. They were adapting to unfamiliar stimuli a lot faster. They were also learning a lot more about their dog’s body language and becoming more aware of their dog and their behavior.”