Starting this Journey with my Kilo and getting this opportunity to work with her have me overjoyed. The experience overall, working with Kilo and hitting the milestones she needs to hit to become a service dog is super exciting because she is so intelligent. Kilo is an extremely fast learner. I have never worked with any service animals before, and this first time is definitely a great experience.
My story begins from December 12th 2002. I was 2 years old, at the time and my mother had passed on this date from cervical cancer. I never had the chance to know her, and my family never much talked about her to me. Growing up I never had much, my family was poor. My father Randy and two siblings Sydney and Ty all lived together in a small trailer park. My dad was never very attentive to me. After losing my mother Rayna, he became very depressed. My brother at the age of 15, got into a lot of trouble. He started getting in trouble at school, and even started doing things no family wants their 15 year old, son or sibling to do. At the age of 7 I was hit by a car, and was hospitalized. Though I don't remember how long I was in the hospital for, the accident was very bad and I am very lucky to be alive today. Fast forward to age 12, we lost everything in a house fire. While dealing with our house fire situation, we had great losses. Our beloved Lab, Kate was unlucky and unable to make it out safely. Over a course of two days of the house fire event happening, someone had actually broken into my fathers shop and stole my fathers quad, two dirt-bikes and even shot my fathers Chocolate lab Ozzy because he was "barking and making it more difficult to break into the shop". With everything that my family and I had been through, my dad became very depressed, and even started drinking. Recently on July 15th, 2020 my father had gone to a Bar/Grill to meet some friends and have dinner. He had taken his motorcycle as transportation and had gotten into a fatal accident on his way home. My story, is very long and I apologize if I didn't get into enough detail as I am not completely use to telling it. The events in my past have been very hard on me, and very traumatic.
Flashbacks of trauma can trigger anxiety, fear, anger and a slew of other emotions that inhibit “normal” ways of going about life. Being able to work with Kilo and have her around to help me with my needs is truly a blessing. I had the greatest experience working this online course!! My Tutor and the support teams are so helpful and the sessions are very clear, and thorough. The sessions have taught me many things in becoming a service dog handler. In a short time you can easily teach your dog to behave. to help you with panic attacks,anxiety, PTSD... and most importantly, never separate from your dog . You can always feel safe with your dog. IT WAS GREAT!
I absolutely cannot wait to continue with our journey. I had an amazing experience working with and training her to become the amazing Service Animal she is meant to be.
