I have been around a variety of animals my entire life. I grew up on a farmette with sheep, pigs, bunnies, cats, and dogs. I have always been and continue to be a huge animal lover. I am a child-less millennial and I wish I could be my own pet, ha. I adopted my golden retriever when she was 8 weeks old and spent a lot of time training her. We began doing therapy dog work, visiting our local nursing home once a week until Covid hit. We did this for 3 years. I also adopted my senior cat when Covid hit. I then started volunteering with an organization that trains service dogs to guide. My role started as a ‘puppy raiser’. The dog lives with me in my house and comes everywhere with me-work, appointments, errands, etc. and my job is to expose it to as many experiences as possible to better prepare it to be a guide dog. I ended up adopting my second dog, a failed guide dog, through this organization and he continues to come into my elementary classroom with my everyday as a therapy dog. After adopting him I pivoted and began teaching inmates how to train guide dogs. My organization partners with a prison where we have about 20 inmate handlers and 10 guide dogs in training the inmates are working with. In the summer I go to the prison 1x/week and help teach the inmates how to train the dogs. I also go to one training class (at least) a month on dog training as part of the organization I volunteer for. I’m comfortable and experienced around dogs of all ages.