Starting a service dog non-profit from the ground up with special guest Britnee Kinard

[00:00:00] Today we have Brittany Kinnard on the show and she was back at episode 76, sharing the total nightmare, honestly. Of the fight that her and her husband have been to. , Trying to get the VA benefits that he rightfully earned and deserved. But Brittany is also the founder and CEO of S D gunner fund. Which is a service dog organization that you started from nothing, your, your husband had a need for a dog and it just kind of grew. From that. And it just blew my mind that you started this organization and you were telling us before that you've placed, how many dogs have you placed in the hundreds? 

[00:00:43] Britnee: I think we're at 110. Yeah. 

[00:00:45] Yeah she's just absolutely amazing so we're going to kind of go from well first welcome to the show welcome back to the show

[00:00:53] Britnee: Glad to be here. Super glad to be here. 

[00:00:56] I would love here too. Like from the beginning, what happened? What made you. What made you cause like i was telling you before we started recording i feel like a lot of us are like you know there's a need for this or i see this and wouldn't it be great if there was something like this and we don't have this or we have to drive to this and how to make it happen and so i'm just really curious what that was how that worked to develop this organization on your own from nothing so all right let's dive in and give us give us all the good stuff 

[00:01:29] Britnee: Well all right. So in 2012, I think it was 2012 or 2013. The VA decided that my husband needed a service animal and, you know, back then service animals were not as prominent as they are now. And I was like, okay, I was like, let me do some. Well, let me do some research.

[00:01:53] Britnee: Right. And did I was doing a bunch of research trying to figure out what in the world he was still using a wheelchair at the time. So he was still mobility impaired. And there's a lot of stuff going on. I am not a dog trainer, never been a dog trainer. And I was like, okay, so I just need to figure this out.

[00:02:16] Britnee: I ended up, I found an organization that was located in Georgia. And signed him up, got the dog, went back to the VA and I was like, all right, you said I needed a service dog. I got a service dog, you know, and, and they were like Okay, but we're not paying for it. And I was like, huh, well, you didn't say that the first time through, you know, I'd like, you didn't, you told me to go get one.

[00:02:49] Britnee: I was like, so I went and got one. And now you're telling me you're not going to pay for it. And they were like, no. And I was like, okay, well, that doesn't work for me. So I went after the VA. I, I don't know if you use the term sue them, cause you can't really sue the VA, but I did challenge the VA and went after them and took about 18 months.

[00:03:10] Britnee: of me driving back and forth to Washington, testifying in front of Congress, talking to senators, having private meetings, the whole nine yards. And basically what I found out was at that time, now keep in mind that this is still back 2012, 2013. During that time, the VA had a service dog approved program that at that time was regulated to assist seeing Hearing traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury victims.

[00:03:41] Britnee: But at that time, since its inception, which was 2006, so 2006 to 2013 or whatever, they had placed approximately 206 dogs. Wow. Across the nation. Mm-hmm. So I was like, you need to tell me, you've had this program for almost 10 years and you've placed 200, 200 dogs. How many veterans do you see? So you know, it, it was clearly being grossly underused, right?

[00:04:14] Britnee: And at the same time, one of the comments I got from one of our, from our local VA was I went up to the prosthetic department and tried to apply, you know, for the service dog assistant and he looked me dead in the face and he said, well, we only assist the deaf and dumb. And I was like, well, we're going to have to reword that a little bit differently because we don't say that and I was like, and, and actually, yes, you do.

[00:04:38] Britnee: These are the dogs that you assist and he looks me dead in the face. And this is the head of prosthetics at the VA. He looks me dead in my face and he goes, well, where did you get that information? And I was like, off of your website. Yeah. Right. I was like, just, just go to va. gov, click on prosthetics, scroll down.

[00:05:00] Britnee: There you go. Right there. You know? And he's like, huh? I'm like, you've never looked at this webpage? He's like, well, I never heard that we were. And I was like, oh dear Lord. So here we go. You know, through the process. 18 months going back and forth, challenging everything. And then I honestly, this is probably, you know, not a braggable moment on my professional character, but sometimes we do what we have to do, right?

[00:05:27] Britnee: I was doing a news interview with a friend of mine, his name is major Jesse Acosta. He lives in California. He had flown in with me to do a, an interview with Fox news about the service dog coverage. And he took an RPG round to the face. So half of his face is reconstructed and he doesn't have any eyes, so he's completely blind.

[00:05:52] Britnee: Like there's just a whole thing. And he was actually told at his VA that even though he needed a seeing eye dog, they thought that because of his TBI, he was too dumb to learn the command. So he went through an organization to get a seeing eye dog, but it was that television interview that changed.

[00:06:14] Britnee: Everything because during that interview, whether we call it my best moment or my worst moment, not quite sure, but I gave out the head of prosthetics name and his phone number on that on that interview and a bunch of folks. Had a lot of opinions about things that had to be said and oddly enough two weeks approximately to the date after that interview I got a letter in the mail that said that my husband's dog was one of the first TBI approved dogs in the low country to work and that all expenses would be paid So that was sort of a whole ordeal, but during that process We had a friend Who had a service animal and it was repossessed.

[00:07:03] Britnee: I guess I'm going to use that term repossessed here, but basically the vet wouldn't turn it loose because the guy couldn't afford the bill. And I had some kind of cancer treatment or something like that. Well, needless to say, two weeks later, our friend. Committed suicide over the dog and it was at that point in time where we were having so much trouble getting gunner approved and we had our friend that had just, you know, fallen victim to suicide and I was sitting there thinking and I was like, clearly we're not the only ones.

[00:07:39] Britnee: Right? I can't imagine. You are. I was not built to be a stay at home mom. I love stay at home mom, but I personally was not built for it. I was ready to peel paint off the walls. Like, I just, I couldn't do it. So I was like, I need something to do. Like, I need something to do, right? Yeah. And so, I was like, kind of like the phrasing you used from the, the cartoons, See a need, feel a need, right?

[00:08:02] Britnee: Yeah. I was like, okay, there's a ton of organizations out here. At that time that do service dogs for veterans, but none of them back in 2012, 2013, it was not standard procedure for them to stay with you. The life of the dog. It was kind of like once you got your dog, you were done, right? So a lot of people were falling into trouble financially affording vet care, food, and all that stuff.

[00:08:30] Britnee: Now, nowadays, in today's world, if you get a dog from an organization, you're with them for the life of the dog, right? Correct. But that's not the way it was. So I was like, okay, well, I don't want to compete with all these people. So we're gonna start We're going to start something and we're going to call it SDGunner Fund.

[00:08:45] Britnee: It's going to be named after our service dogs. So that's what we're going to do. Right. And we're going to, our initial mission was to assist financially with the means to obtain and maintain service animals. So I didn't do any training. All I wanted to do was, was help you keep your dog. I pay vet bills.

[00:09:07] Britnee: I'll buy food. I'll do vests. I'll do whatever's necessary. That lasted about. Two years, year and a half or so. And I started getting all these phone calls from people and they're like, Hey, do you train dogs? And I'm like, no, I do not train dogs. This is not my forte. I had two small babies at the time and I'm like, I don't even have enough time to help myself think.

[00:09:31] Britnee: I was trying to take my husband back and forth to hospital appointments and everything else. I'm like, no, I'm not training a dog. Phone calls kept coming and I'm like, okay, well, let me do some research. Right. So I started looking and I started researching your much larger organizations like like canine companions for independence.

[00:09:51] Britnee: That's a wonderful, absolutely wonderful organization. Their dogs perform. Like top of the key, but what I did find is with some of these larger organizations, and it's not their fault by any means, but they're so big and they're so popular that they can have anywhere between a two to four year wait list, you know, and so I'm like, okay, well, then in my brain, I'm sitting there going.

[00:10:14] Britnee: All right, two to four year, if you had diabetes, if you had seizures, if you had something like that, I could see that two to four years with someone with PTSD who may have a lot of skeletons in their closet, they're not going to be here in two to four years. So how do we fix that? Right. And I was like, okay, go training.

[00:10:35] Britnee: I mean, I grew up on a farm. I'm from Mississippi. I'm like. Thank you. Hey, let's figure it out, right? Hold my beer. Here we go. You know, and okay, it was so not that easy, but we started and I actually ended up hiring the guy that we use to train Gunner. I started with him and then we eventually brought on another trainer.

[00:11:01] Britnee: And at the time we were working individually, like I had basically one trainer on staff that that was handling everything. And I noticed real quickly that we were growing faster than the trainer could keep up with. They were getting overwhelmed very quickly. So a few years ago, fast forward, but a few years ago, we ended up hiring to where we are now.

[00:11:20] Britnee: And we have anywhere from. four to seven trainers on staff at all times. And I say on staff, they're independently contracted, but, but we partner with them and we brought all these people on board. And I'm like, all right, we're going to, we're going to train service dogs. And when we started out, we only did veterans because I knew how to handle that portion of it that, that we had suffered with gunner.

[00:11:46] Britnee: And then my oldest child Let's see, come about 20, I don't remember, 2014, but somewhere along there was diagnosed with autism. And I was like, okay. So I started doing research, and I found that although there's a ton of programs out there for veterans, when you get to look in for special needs, There's hardly anything like, or there's hardly anything that's free.

[00:12:19] Britnee: Let, let me start with that. There's a lot of options out there, but you've got to pay an arm and a leg, right? Right. Most people with special needs children, unless they've done well for themselves prior to the child, they're living paycheck to paycheck or they're on Medicare or Medicaid or however that works.

[00:12:32] Britnee: And so you're, you're, you're trying to manage all of that. And I'm like, holy crap. Like these people can't afford the necessities that they're doing. So I was like, we're going to add. Autism and special needs to the training requirement and then fast forward, you know, a little bit of time and I was like, well, in the military, my husband was military police and firefighter or crash firefighter rescue.

[00:12:58] Britnee: I'm like, so it was all first responder type stuff. And I was like, we're going to add first responders to the list. You know, we're just going to put them all in a blender and that's what we're going to do. Right. And so it just sort of kind of built, so now we're up to, let's say, 2018, and we're full blown running with service dogs.

[00:13:18] Britnee: And then I noticed that some of our service dogs would get to the end of the testing, and they'd just... Just might not have exactly what it takes, but they're good and everything else. So I was like, we're going to add therapy dogs to the process because therapy dogs are just really a step down from the surface.

[00:13:37] Britnee: I mean, they don't have to have a task, right? And I'm like, then we're going to turn all these dogs that don't make it, or we're going to partner with these and we're going to, we're going to do therapy dogs. So we've started that a few years ago and then You know, I think we have seven therapy dogs working now.

[00:13:52] Britnee: We just got an order from a school system for 16 therapy dogs, you know, over a three year period. So we've got, that's actually turning into one of our larger programs. And then, you know, and, and everything with us is, I don't, I'm not a large organization, so I don't have. I do have red tape, but I don't have as much red tape.

[00:14:14] Britnee: So a lot of times I will take special circumstances. I get called by organizations all the time. And they're like, we would love to help this person, but we can't. Can you help us help them? And I'm like, I have a hard time saying no to anybody. My board will tell you straight up. They, they harass me all the time.

[00:14:32] Britnee: And they tell me to learn a new language because they're like, no, is not, is not in your vocabulary, you know? And I'm like, yeah, sure. So a few years ago. Two years ago, I guess it was I had an army veteran come to me with a severe gluten allergy that left her in anaphylactic shock. Oh, wow. And I'm like, when she first told me, I was kind of...

[00:14:56] Britnee: You know, I wasn't sure. And this is just me being me being me right in my head. I didn't say this, but you know, it's kind of like, I was thinking, okay, is this a diet fad? Is this like, you know, because a lot of people claim that they can't eat gluten, you know, hold on yours. So I ended up having a conversation with her doctor.

[00:15:11] Britnee: And it was, it was mind blowing. And she was like, can you train gluten? And I'm like, well, we've never done that before, but I started laughing and I was like, as long as we can shake hands on an agreement and she's like, okay. And I was like, if this does not work out, you will have one amazing PTSD anxiety dog, but like, don't hate me if this totally blows up in your face, you know?

[00:15:42] Britnee: And she's like, not, not at all. And I was like, you willing to put the work in? She was like, absolutely. So we hired a trainer. From somewhere cold. It was like Wisconsin Wyoming somewhere out there. We did zoom sessions because I couldn't bring her here because there's not a gluten trainer here, you know, and so we did zoom sessions and this veteran worked her tail off between zoom.

[00:16:04] Britnee: She met twice a week for two hours at a time. This went on for two and a half years. Wow. Like not, not just a six month timeframe. And I am happy to say that we do have a solid gluten alert dog and we were able to help her. But so we take on odd requests like that all the time. I just got a phone call last week from another organization and they're like, Hey, we want to do a service dog for this person, but there was an issue with their VA rating and it was kind of all tangled up.

[00:16:34] Britnee: And some, some groups won't work with you unless you have. You know, you're set paperwork and I'm like, all that makes sense to me. Let me look at it. Yes, we'll take him, you know, and now we're going to partner with them. So a lot of our stuff comes organization to organization request. All of our applicants are usually local within a two hour radius of Savannah or so.

[00:16:53] Britnee: If they are long distance then we will fly out to them. Like, I mean, I've got dogs in Alaska. I've got dogs in Los Angeles. I've got dogs all over the United States, but we just have to figure out. The coordinates to get them there or to get them to us to, you know, to do the training. 

[00:17:09] But that's how it all kind of started. You know, with SD Gunner Fund and we just sort of grew. So we started out service. We started out just helping financially and then the people started calling and calling and the request and we started filling those requests and then we went into therapy and then now we do a whole lot more than, than just that.

[00:17:30] Britnee: You know, if, if you live locally we also have a program called Sunflower Cafe. And that one is my one of my favorites. It was started in a local school system here. What a lot of people don't realize is here. The monies that are raised through the PTO and through the school system, none of it benefits the special education department.

[00:17:51] Britnee: So they have to fund their own stuff. And so what we did is we partnered with them to create this amazing. It's called Sunflower Cafe in honor of a local child who died of leukemia. And these are self contained classrooms. So we're dealing with severely disabled children. And what they do is every Friday, starting in October, we give them uniforms, hats, aprons, job titles, the whole nine yards.

[00:18:19] Britnee: And they have little Keurig systems and they have the K Cups we don't like hot coffee for safety purposes, but we have those mechanics carts and they roll them around the school and they sell coffee to the teachers. Now what exactly does that do? That helps them because you're teaching them.

[00:18:37] Britnee: Adult daily living skills. You're teaching them how to converse with people, how to handle simple change and money, how to just, how to be, how to be in a job, you know. And so you're teaching them job skills, and then they take all that money, and we put it back into the self contained classroom. So they use that money to pay for their field trips.

[00:18:56] Britnee: Or any of the other supplies that they need. And that's been amazing. You should see I have to send you some of the videos, but you should see some of the videos. It's so cute. And then we have a fourth program that comes around every Christmas. It's called our Christmas Blessings. We partner with a pediatric therapy clinic, and we go in and we pay off all of their past due.

[00:19:21] Britnee: Accounts. And the reason being is because this particular pediatric therapy clinic that we partnered with, like the one we did last year, they don't send families to collections. The way they work is if your bill gets to a certain point, they will pause your therapy services and let you make payments until it gets back down to a manageable point.

[00:19:41] Britnee: And then your child can can start therapy again. So that is. It's totally commendable in comparison to sending you to collections, right? At the same time, early intervention is key with children with disabilities. So we don't want them to go without therapy. So every, every Christmas we go in and we pay off.

[00:19:59] Britnee: All the past two accounts in hopes that the parents a are relieved that the kids don't have to go without therapy and that at the same time, whatever monies they were trying to save up to put towards that balance, they can now spend that on Christmas and give them an amazing Christmas and kind of go about that way.

[00:20:17] Britnee: So that's sort of our for our four main. Programs on the therapy dog side. We train therapy dogs for educational and facility usage only. So what does that mean? Exactly. That means that I trained therapy dogs to work in school systems full time and I trained therapy dogs to work in facilities like.

[00:20:37] Britnee: Pediatric therapy or hospitals full time. I do not train therapy dogs for you to take to a nursing home on Sunday afternoon during your free time. That can be done through local clinics and classes elsewhere. So we do facility usage only. And then like I said our service dogs, we do veterans, first responders and special needs children.

[00:20:57] Britnee: We train PTSD. We train mobility. We've done seizure alert. We've done gluten alert. I do everything except Seeing hearing and diabetes. I try to steer away from any life threatening diseases or disabilities because, and that's just a personal decision. I know this sounds awful, but I would feel absolutely terrible if a dog missed a mark and somebody died like that.

[00:21:23] Britnee: Just that. Yeah. Yeah. So we chose not to do that. But we pretty much cover everything else. But it's, it's, it's all turned into a, my inability to say no, 

[00:21:36] Alison: I mean how how do you say when someone calls and they're like please help me i'm just getting door after door closed and they're just at their wit's end right i mean how how do you not sympathize with that i would be the same way

[00:21:50] Britnee: It is really, it's really hard because like, so you take like my, my gluten recipient, right? She has a wonderful story. She'll tell you straight up. I called all these people and they all told me, no, I called Brittany and she said yes, but I do have people on the other side of the spectrum where.

[00:22:05] Britnee: You know, I have to look at a parent who's reached out to me because they have a severely disabled child. And I have to make that decision of whether or not I feel like the dog is actually going to be beneficial or if it's going to be a hindrance. And if that child is so severely disabled, then you've got to, you got to break the news to that parent.

[00:22:25] Britnee: And it's, and it's always awful. It's always terrible because you, you don't want to crush their spirit because you are probably the last person they're reaching out to before they just feel deceited. And you've got to give them that news and that that is. That's really hard. It's really hard for me. It's really hard for my training team.

[00:22:43] Britnee: It's always a sad day Hence why we've tried really hard not to ever say no But it does happen from time to time, you know And it's just something where you have to look at the safety of the dog and you have to look at the safety of the Child. 

[00:22:57] . Oh, man, that is definitely a tough call to have to make for sure. Okay. So can we just back up for just a second? So when you said at the very beginning that you initially started SD gunner fund, because you, you didn't want people to lose their service dog because of the financial requirements, right? Sometimes when caring for the dog and that initial setup and things like that. But where. So, so you're, we're going to fund the care for the dog, for the life of the dog, whatever you need. Where do you get the funding for that thing like how did you how are you paying for these people for the bills and things that people are sending to you

[00:23:36] Britnee: Have you ever seen that State Farm commercial with little old man where he's like, I got your dollar. That's really what I feel like. So it's, it's funny because like I spend 24 seven. The people around here locally, they either love to see me coming or they're like, Oh, dear Lord. Because I have no shame.

[00:23:58] Britnee: Like I am, I am asking for money 24 seven. That is my life. I have begun to make the assumption that sales is one thing, but nonprofit fundraising sales is a whole nother, a whole nother beast. But you, you know, you just have to get out there and ask. And a lot of people. Sometimes I can tell the story or our recipients can tell the story.

[00:24:21] Britnee: It's really easy. You know, people are like, oh, my gosh, we're moved by the story we want to give. Other times, you know, I do have to go door to door knocking and be like, hey, you know, can you help us out? We do get some. Grant funding from corporations. It's not a lot, but we do get some we are not a federally funded like through a specific entity, non profit We don't have a set stream of funds coming in Every year we have to set that budget and every year i've got to raise that budget.

[00:24:51] Britnee: So it's It's really hard and a lot of people may not understand too Depending upon how the non profit is set up again. We're very small. So this would not apply to like Large groups like wounded warrior project or etc. But like. If your executive director's salary is going to be 75, 000 that year, well, you've got to raise that 75, 000 plus the cost of your program, plus if you have an admin assistant, you've got to raise that too.

[00:25:17] Britnee: So you, you've got, you've literally got to fundraise the cost of everything within your program. And if you fall short. somebody's getting cut somewhere along the way. And so it's either that means it's one or two families we can't serve. That means we have to get rid of the admin assistant, or that means the grant writer's gone, or that means, you know, so it's, it's really kind of imperative that you raise that, that money.

[00:25:41] Britnee: So we, we spend a lot of time soliciting via Facebook, our website, and then also going door to door and calling in. You know, to large corporations and saying, Hey, do you have a grant? Do you have anything that we might fit into? But it's, it's a full time job. So 

[00:25:57] Alison: Yeah. Yeah, I can, I can imagine. So, gosh, that's really, I don't really, I mean, I. Girl. I do not know how you do it. 

[00:26:08] Alison: I really don't know how you do it. And I'm, I'm sure you've heard that sometimes because like you're doing, you know, you're doing all of that, which in and of itself as a full-time job. 

[00:26:17] Plus do you have a husband who is still working through his healing and you have an autistic son and another child as well

[00:26:24] Alison: And you're fighting all the VA stuff. And then it's like, oh, let's, you know, take on this other full-time job on top of my other full-time jobs. And it's just like, Holy Crow. Okay. So. Okay. So, so that's how it started initially. And then you had to get people or, you know, you're seeing the need that, okay. Here's the, the, you know, we're paying all these bills and then there's this waitlist and, and, you know, I volunteer with a service dog group here in Colorado, freedom service dogs, and the wait list is two to three years. 

[00:26:54] Alison: So that has not changed. Uh, the meat has definitely not changed. So when, when you start the training part of it, And you want to bring on the trainer or we want to start to work with our own dogs where, you know, so you found a trainer initially, how does that work? Like you go and procure a dog and say, okay, here's the dog. I'm going to deliver the dog to the trainer or the dog's gonna live with the trainer. 

[00:27:19] Alison: The trainer is going to train them, or the person comes in and they procure the dog. And then they're working with the trainer. Like how does that what does that whole process look like

[00:27:29] Alison: It's kind 

[00:27:30] Britnee: of all over the place. So I've tried them all. Okay. I've, I've tried it. And again, every, so I love freedom service dogs, by the way. I, I've tried every method known to man. And again, it's going to work differently for each entity. Right. So starting out, we did what we would call board and trains.

[00:27:52] Britnee: That means that the dog goes to the trainer, stays with the trainer until completion, and then is placed with the person. Okay. That works, but only with certain people. Okay. Because if you have someone coming into your programs who has never owned a dog in their life, yes, people do exist. Yeah. They're far in between, but they do exist.

[00:28:14] Britnee: Yeah. And, and they're asking you simple questions like, How many times a day do I let the dog out? How many times do I feed the dog? Like, where do I put the leash? I mean, they're asking all of the basic questions that we would assume with standard knowledge, but they've never had a dog before. So when they get the dog from the board and train, they're going to go home and they're like, well, it's not doing what you said it would do.

[00:28:35] Britnee: They kind of view the dog as if it's a robot. And I'm like, okay, well, it's not a robot. You have to keep working it. You have to do this every day. So then we sort of, We still offer board and train, but then we sort of went over to, I started doing group classes. So we would meet every day or every Saturday in Richmond Hill where we're located, meet at the park, and we would train and we'd have beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes, right?

[00:29:03] Britnee: And that also had its pluses and minuses. The plus was our veterans had a lot of camaraderie because they were meeting in groups every week. So that, that was really cool to see them sort of form those bonds and take on those relationships. The downside to it was everybody was miserable because in the program, you're going to have to do this for A minimum of 12 to 18 months and nobody wants to give up every Saturday during the summer when school's out because they have a life and they don't want to spend it with you, you know, and that's okay to totally fill you, you know, yeah so that was sort of an issue.

[00:29:39] Britnee: And then we also had some trainers that had. Some religious conflicts on Saturday. So they couldn't come. And so I was like, okay, well, now we're gonna, now we're gonna switch. So now we're on our, our third round of trying different training. So we still offer board and trains. We still offer group classes as needed, but now our new reign of training, which started this year I have independently contracted trainers. And when, when you are approved with an application you are sent an email that says, thank you for joining the program. We have assigned you to X trainer. Here's their contact information. You need to contact the trainer, set up a training time.

[00:30:26] Britnee: On your schedule that works for you and then our trainers are instructed that they are to meet with the client a minimum of one time per week. So they have to meet once a week and then they have homework to do all that week and then they meet back once a week. But it's on the trainer's time and the recipient's time and that way I'm not telling them you have to be here at this date and this time.

[00:30:49] Britnee: That has worked out really well. I've gotten the least amount of complaints on that one, but we still offer board and trains, especially for those who, who either have a child or a spouse that is so disabled that it's not going to come into class is not going to work. Or we have someone who. Again, has never had a dog and they might, might mess up the whole puppy train, potty training, crate training process because they don't know kind of what they're doing.

[00:31:19] Britnee: So we'll do board and trains to kind of make sure there's no bad habits learned early on. And then we'll also do board and trains for anybody out of state simply because, simply because they can't be here. So it, it kind of, that's sort of how we have it set up right now, but we try to be. really flexible.

[00:31:37] Britnee: I mean, because we have some, a lot of our veterans that have come through have worked at places like Gulfstream. That's a very large Airplane company. Well, they may work third shift. They may work first shift. They may work 80 hours a week They and finally at the end of the day I'm like you schedule it on your time because I can't I don't know when you're home and when you're not, you know Yeah, and it works with the trainers too because all of our trainers own their own businesses So I have to keep in mind too.

[00:32:04] Britnee: They have what I would refer to as civilian But they have civilian clients as well. Not just not just me So it enables them to say, okay, this is what we're doing. And then every year, each trainer tells us. How many dogs they can handle. So, I have a trainer, like, we'll send out a survey and go, Alright, how many dogs do you want this year?

[00:32:27] Britnee: Most on average will tell me, I'm not taking more than five. You know, and please, and please spread them out throughout the year. Okay, well if that's the case, if I have five trainers, and each person says they can take five, then I know going into 2024, I can do 25 dogs. You know so that also helps me with a budget and say, okay, well, if it costs me X dollars to do per dog, then I need to raise this for this year, you know, and I've got some that'll say three, I've got some that'll, you know, say, well, I'll take three one on ones and two board and trains or something like that, you know, so it kind of, it kind of varies and the trainers set, set their own stuff and we try to be flexible and understanding with each person that comes in.

[00:33:08] Britnee: So it's a happy work environment. And so far it seems to have worked with us. 

[00:33:12] Alison: Yeah. Okay. So you kind of have three models at once and it's whichever, whatever client, whichever one works best from them. For them. So then if you're in, so like if you're in a board and train, obviously the dog is living with the trainer and trained by the trainer and then they're turned over to a handler. So if you've got a weekend group and then you've got the private or you're meeting on your own time, Where is the dog being or living in this process is it staying with the handler or a trainer or what

[00:33:42] Britnee: The dog is actually living with the recipient. Oh, nice. Okay. But yes, so we sort of it's, it's really dependent upon the situation, but the dog stays with the recipient. The only time the dog would not is like we've had scenarios in the past where I go back to potty training and crate training.

[00:34:02] Britnee: That's the job nobody wants. Yeah, I usually get that job. All the puppies end up at my house for some reason. I'm the sucker. But but we'll get some people and they just don't realize that with an eight week old puppy that they have to be up every two hours, you know, or a 12 week old puppy. Yeah. And they're like, Oh my gosh, this is like having a baby all over again.

[00:34:23] Britnee: And I'm like, Oh yes. I was like, and the only difference is they don't wear diapers. So it's all over your house. I was like, you got to do it. And then they'll call me and they'll go, no, I'm not doing this now. Like, okay, well, we're going to pull you from this program. We're going to put you on the board and train, and then I'm going to call the trainers and go.

[00:34:38] Britnee: All right, I need, I need potty training and crate training. And of course they're all like, yay, you know, but it's like, oh gosh, okay. But you know, it's part of it, but it, but we make it work. And if any point in time, like there's also been times where we do the individual sessions. And if I see, or the trainer sees that the recipient is just either, they're not getting it.

[00:34:59] Britnee: Or something at life, something in life or at home is going on that they're not telling us but the dog is not progressing where I need it to be. We will pull the dog and put it in a board and train just for a few weeks to get it caught back up and then we'll replace the dog. So sometimes the dogs will bounce back and forth a few times.

[00:35:15] Britnee: It's really kind of whatever, whatever the situation dictates is how we try to do it. 

[00:35:22] I think that. That's a really interesting model to have that the. The handler is actually an integral part of the training process with the dog, which I think is a really great idea. So where are the dogs coming from? You're getting puppies. They're eight weeks old. Do you, is this. Uh the recipient that is going and getting the dog like how does that all work

[00:35:43] Britnee: So we are one of the few organizations that will accept what I call previously owned dogs. So I will take a dog that you have as long as the dog is under two years old, and as long as the dog passes a behavioral assessment.

[00:35:57] Britnee: If he passes and is under two years old, I'm gonna train that dog because you've already got a bond with that dog. I don't have to like everything's already there, right? So I just got to teach it a skill set and some manners and that's pretty much what it boils down to we do take in puppies I try not to honestly just because puppies are a lot and and there's such a gap in training like a lot of people are like oh well it takes two two and a half years and I'm like okay yes that is the time frame for training if you're starting at eight weeks old because you have to like Do nothing from 8 to 12 weeks old, but potty train, I'm like, then you have to create.

[00:36:35] Britnee: I said the first 6 months of its life. You're spending majority of the time. Not really teaching much, but you're trying to get it into a routine. I was like, that's why it takes so long. And then you have to wait for the puppy to grow up, especially if you have like a lab or some dogs that take forever to kind of.

[00:36:50] Britnee: Grow up a little bit or to get there. Yes, yes. I'm like, you're, you're training a skill and then you're waiting three months and then you're training a skill and then you're waiting three months, you know? Yeah. And then you have other dogs like poodles. That are going to pick up on it like pick up on everything and they're going to be like, okay, this is great.

[00:37:06] Britnee: And they're going to test out early. You're going to have big dogs like we have a great Pyrenees. Your training session with them is going to be a max of 10 minutes. And then they give up and they lay on the floor and they're not going to get up and do anything else you ask them to. Period. Like you just gotta wait till tomorrow.

[00:37:20] Britnee: You got 10 minutes and that's it, you know, and so it's like, what can I get in the 10 minutes, you know, so it varies per it varies per dog. So it's kind of, it's kind of crazy, but we take any dog. I unfortunately don't have a lot of luck with rescues around here. There are one or two that I will work with, but majority of them have either lied to me or given me.

[00:37:42] Britnee: horrible dogs in the past. So they're not a reliable source. I will be honest though, what I do get a lot of really good dogs from is where we are located. We are directly in between Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, both of which are military bases. So when PCS season hits. And people can't take their dogs with them.

[00:38:02] Britnee: I usually get some pretty good house dogs. I've gotten great golden retrievers and some oodles and doodles. All those dogs from people that are PCSing that just simply can't take their dogs with them or don't want to take their dogs with them. They want to make sure they get in a great home. And I'm like, well, they're already used to a chaotic environment.

[00:38:20] Britnee: Like, let me test your dog. So we get a lot of our dogs from there. I do have a few breeders. We've got a lab breeder. We've got a collie breeder and a poodle breeder. But pretty much everything else is when I need a dog, I'm going to put it out on Facebook, I'm going to see who comments and then I'm going to go through and have the trainers, I'll assign each trainer a person to go visit, and I'm like, go do puppy evaluations on these dogs, and they're like, okay there's a few breeds that we try not to handle simply just because it's either lack of education on the recipient or the person's parts.

[00:38:56] Britnee: One of those would be like a Belgian Malinois. I like Malinois, but if you are not familiar with a Malinois, they're going to eat the drywall out of your house. So, you know, it's not a good placement. You know, so we try to make sure that we explain to those folks, like, Hey, I know you saw the movie. I know you think this dog is cool.

[00:39:13] Britnee: But how do you plan on, Dealing with this dog, you know again, they're fabulous dogs, but it's the, it's the recipient that you got to make sure I could handle the dog. I don't know if they can handle the dog, you know? 

[00:39:27] Alison: Yeah, because the Malinois. That is the almost all military working dogs are melon well so that's that's a very popular breed for military working dogs and police dogs yeah

[00:39:37] Alison: . So it sounds like if I'm understanding or saying this correctly, you get an applicant. You're like, okay, we're going to help this person. And then from that point, you procure a dog either. You. I'll Put up on facebook is this a good match you go check out the dog or they come in with their own dog and you're seeing if if it's going to be a good fit

[00:39:57] Britnee: We do not, we do not own kennels. Yeah. Yeah. So I do not have any overhead and we try to keep it that way because our method works for us. Now, if we continue to get bigger, I'm not going to have a choice.

[00:40:07] Britnee: I'm going to have to buy kennels. But at this particular point, I don't personally like the idea of kennels. I like the fact that the dogs live with us. They're around my kids. They're around my family. They're, and same with the trainers. Like that way I know for a fact if there's a, not that this has happened, but hypothetically if someone comes in and goes, Oh my gosh, I took the dog home and he bit my child.

[00:40:28] Britnee: Right, I'm gonna be able to say well the dog lived in my house for a year and a half and I have Absolutely utter dysfunction going on in my house and he didn't do squat. I'm gonna be like, okay I'm gonna need you to tell me what happened Give me the scenario because it's not gonna make sense Versus the dog that's stuck in a kennel for six hours a day and works for an hour a day and then stuck back in A kennel.

[00:40:52] Britnee: I don't know the behaviors of that animal So I really like the way it's set up right now just because It also gives our recipients some elbow grease, or as we call it, some skin in the game, because they're having to train alongside the dog. So it's your responsibility, because that is also a factor when you look at board and trains.

[00:41:12] Britnee: When we board and train the dogs, the dog forms a bond with me, the dog forms a, and then when you place it, it's, it's going to spend the next two to four weeks trying to figure out. Why in the hell they got sent over here and then they're trying to figure out you and it's like children They're gonna push all of your buttons to see what they can get away with And it's almost like you're trying to start over versus if you're with them from the time from the first time they poop in your floor Till when they graduate.

[00:41:41] Britnee: Yeah, there's a whole different bond there that I don't have to teach You know, and it makes it so much easier. 

[00:41:48] Alison: Yeah i can see that i can see that for sure so then in the training process and i know the answer is probably going to be it's variable but like on average what would you say the training time is is it is it like six months is it a year what what are the variables in that

[00:42:02] Britnee: So it depends on the task. I, I would say for a basic PTSD dog, if I get the puppy at eight weeks old, I can get that dog out of here in 12 months about, about that. And that's learning. So we have a standardized program that we follow that we kind of made up ourselves because there's not really one for the industry to go by their suggestions, but there's not really one.

[00:42:27] Britnee: So we require all of our dogs to pass the AKC canine good citizens. The AKC community canine and the AKC urban canine. So they have to pass all three AKC tests before they are allowed to go to task. Now, under ADA law, the service dog must perform one task related to your disability and they must hit that task a minimum of 90 percent of the time.

[00:42:52] Britnee: There's still 10 percent of room for error, right? It's still a dog. It's going to mess up. What we do is we teach three tasks. So when the dog leaves here, the dog is going to have three tasks in the event you need extra stuff done. And we're, we're trying to stick to that 90 percent of the time he's performing, you know, blah, blah, blah.

[00:43:12] Britnee: And that's sort of how we go. So a PTSD dog, 12 months. Mobility, if you're doing just counterbalancing. And maybe some retrieval. So picking up items, 18 months. Maybe 24 months depending upon what they got to pick up. If we're talking about keys, that's one thing. If we're talking about a prosthetic, that's a whole nother thing, right?

[00:43:34] Britnee: Yeah. Yeah. Or if you're talking about small items like picking up a credit card off the floor, that's really thin. It's gonna take some, some time. Yeah. Versus teaching them how to cut on lights or close doors. Those are also skill sets. The longer, so the gluten dog, two and a half years. Yeah. Yeah. Seizure dogs, two, two and a half years because that's, that's a lot of, it's a lot of stuff that's got to go into that.

[00:44:00] Britnee: It, it really kind of, and it also depends on the dog because like I said earlier, you give me a poodle. It's a general standard 70 pound poodle, not the little bitty ones, not the oodle doodles, but you give me a standard poodle that has a good genetic bloodline, that dog will come out faster than any other dog I've got.

[00:44:23] Britnee: They just pick up on everything so much easier, but they can't do things like mobility because they're not very big, right? So you can't use them for balancing unless you're a little bitty person. And they are great with retrieval though. So they do like to pick up stuff versus, like I said earlier, a great Pyrenees.

[00:44:41] Britnee: Well, our great Pyrenees are used for mobility. They are great at pushing and pulling and being like the ox of the thing. But it's going to take you two years to train them because you've got 10 minute increments and that's it. You know, so it's like, I really could train you faster if you'd be a little bit more excited.

[00:44:58] Britnee: But we also live down here where it's 112 degrees. So when it comes summertime, they don't work at all because they're like, they stick their head outside. They're like, I'm not going outside today. I'm not going outside. Nope. Okay. Alright. You know, so I can't really argue with you. I don't want to go outside either.

[00:45:17] Alison: Right. 100%. 

[00:45:18] So then cost-wise, that's a variable as well. Like how much would you say on average, what would it be for a dog that, you know, coming into the program to graduation? Um to being placed permanently with a, with a handler what is the cost for you guys on average

[00:45:35] Britnee: It varies.

[00:45:36] Britnee: Obviously the, the more the task or the more. , the harder the task is. So our seizure dog, not our seizure dog, our gluten dog, we probably spent 20, 25, 000 on that dog, maybe more seizure dogs, same thing, 25, 30, you know I try not to go over 25, 000 period, just cause that's a lot of money some of, some of our dogs with more basic services.

[00:46:06] Britnee: So you say just a general deep pressure therapy, autism dog, 10, 10, 000, eight, maybe I mean, depends on the trainer and the cost, but eight to 10, 000 a basic PTSD dog, 10, 000. But again, it just, and it goes up from there. I'd probably say 10, eight to 10 is our cheapest. And then they go up to 25, 30, 000.

[00:46:33] Alison: Yeah. And so, and so you're placing, well, I guess it depends for you guys, right? How many dogs you can play spaced on what your trainers are able to do. And do you guys have a waitlist for your organization as well? Or do you do like a first come first serve basis?

[00:46:49] Britnee: So, we open up applications twice a year.

[00:46:51] Britnee: We open them in January and then we open them in June. So we, we just finished our June, well, we just finished notifying our June applicants. I think we took on seven more. But again, it, it, I don't have a wait list. As of right now, because this, this last June application, we, we, we were able to get out all the applicants that were sitting in, in, in the pool, but the most I try to make somebody wait is six months, like, before they, they hear from us.

[00:47:21] Britnee: And again, it, it varies, but six month max wait time. If it is something that is needed, like I get called from another organization and it's something that's got to go quickly, we will rearrange the schedule to accommodate accordingly. And a lot of our people are really great about that. They'll like, yeah, just bump me to the next term or whatever.

[00:47:42] Britnee: And they'll, they'll work with people, but a lot of it is to. I am not about quantity. I am all about quality. And for me, what does that mean? That means protecting my trainers. And so I cannot, I do not want them to get burnout. I do not want them to not want to answer my phone call because they're like, Oh my God, here she comes.

[00:48:07] Britnee: She's going to give me another 10 dogs, right? You know, so it's like I try to, I try really hard to respect their wishes. And if they say. three dogs, then that's all I'm going to give you. If you say five dogs, that's all I'm going to give you because I don't want you to come back and be like, well, I said three and you gave me 10 and that's too many and I can't run my own business and I've had too much and I quit because now that's going to hurt me and, and them because you know, civilian trainers.

[00:48:35] Britnee: They're going to get everybody who's wanting to house train their dogs, right? But it's usually not a recurring client. I'm, I'm a recurring client. So, you know, I want them to, to want to keep us on, on board. And I really want to protect their mental health and their wellbeing. And I want them excited. So that's kind of why we don't ever have a set.

[00:48:53] Britnee: There've been some years where I've only done 10 dogs. There's been some years where I've done 27 dogs. It just depends on the situation. So I have one trainer that is solely over therapy dogs. That's all she does. And then the rest of my trainers do do service dogs. Yeah, and then I have one trainer that kind of floats back and forth.

[00:49:14] Britnee: He'll do therapy and he'll do some prep for service. But but I mean, it's kind of we divided it up and we said, okay, who wants what and where and everybody kind of picked and then we went from there. But I can't run a business without them. So my job is to really kind of protect the trainers here.

[00:49:30] Britnee: Yeah, that's really 

[00:49:31] Alison: smart. 

[00:49:31] So when you, you started this yourself, right? Like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And then obviously growing bigger into a bigger organization and you were talking about a board. So what does that look like as you grow? Like how and who, and. Who do you take on next what does that what does that look like what does the organization look like

[00:49:52] Britnee: It's super painful. I mean that, I mean that in a good way. Growth is always good, right? But growth is always ugly. Yeah. It's hard. Sure. You don't go from like your 12 year old stage to beauty queen stage without that ugly phase. Right. And we've all been there, you know, it's like, when I started, I had three board members.

[00:50:14] Britnee: It was me and two of my girlfriends. Okay. And really and truly, it consisted of me calling them going, Hey, I'm starting an organization. I need board members. You want to sit on it? And they were like, yeah, sure. I mean, it was totally horrible. Like we were like, we don't know what we're doing, but, but we're going to do it.

[00:50:30] Britnee: It's going to be great. Yeah. Yes. I made sure not to have family or anybody on the board that where they could say that I was being biased or whatever. So my husband or none of them, you know, serve on the board and that worked for a little while. And then probably. Let's see, probably three years ago was when we had a big growth spurt, and we upped our board to seven people.

[00:50:56] Britnee: Three to seven. Now, that's a lot of opinions you got to juggle, right? And with a board, you could ask ten different people and get ten different answers. So I'm gonna try to answer this, like, strategically here. Okay. But when you're picking a board, Some people will tell you to pick a board depending upon what you need, like, do you, do you need an attorney to draw up all your contracts?

[00:51:23] Britnee: If so, put an attorney on your board. Do you need liability insurance and stuff like that? Get an insurance agent on your board. Do you need press releases written? Go get a PR firm and put them on your board. All that is what I would call strategic placement, right? Okay. But if you get too many, Okay. Of the strategic placements, you end up with no sweat equity, which is what I call the people that work behind the scenes.

[00:51:49] Britnee: Right? So in my personal opinion, and I have been through quite a few boards now is you're going to have three types of people. You're going to have people who believe in your mission, who are there, who are going to give you the shirt off their back, and they're going to work like dogs to help you build this organization.

[00:52:08] Britnee: You're going to have people who are checking a box. On their resume and they just need a board seat and you're going to have people that are doing it just for the clout Yeah, just for the people to say oh I was part of that. Yeah, right and I was like really okay You know But when you get those people though majority of the time your box checkers and your clout people Don't do any work.

[00:52:40] Britnee: They basically occupy space So what value are they bringing to your board? So you have to determine at that time whether or not you're going to say a lot of boards have minimum fundraising requirements. We don't because we're a, a small organization, but I guarantee you if you walk into some of these 30 million organizations, each board members probably got to raise two to 2 to 5 million.

[00:53:06] Britnee: You know, I mean, and that's, and they don't care if you cut it from your own check or if you call in favors, but that is your, that is your part. You've got to bring it. So a lot of organizations will do that to either get the check or get the sweat equity. To me, sure, I'd love to have contacts all day long, but sweat equity to me is more important.

[00:53:28] Britnee: Why? Because I'm a very hands on executive director. I plan all of our events. I work all of our fundraisers, and I am in charge of the training, and I manage the training team, and I manage the trainers. So there's a time where, you know, a great example would be like right now, we're transitioning into our therapy dog, school just started, I got dogs everywhere, I'm over here, and I need to call somebody on the board and go, okay, our gala's in November, I don't have time to do this, can somebody do it?

[00:54:02] Britnee: You know, that's when those sweat equity people come into play because they're like, yep. I got it. Don't worry Yeah, if you don't have enough of those on there It's going to bite you in the rear end, you know Especially if you're a smaller organization if you're a 30 million dollar organization and you can pay an event planner by all means Go ahead, you know But that's where it kind of comes into play is to me.

[00:54:23] Britnee: I have found that it is better to have a healthy balance splits your board to half strategic people and half sweat equity people because the sweat equity people may not have the cash flow to give you all that money, but they're going to work it. Work for it. Yeah. You know, and, and that kind of balances out your strategic people that are donating their in kind services.

[00:54:46] Britnee: And don't really want to do a whole lot more than that. 

[00:54:48] Alison: Okay so that's a requirement of being a 5 0 1 c3 organization is that you have a why why would you have a board you have to okay so if you're a nonprofit you have to have a board that's a requirement 

[00:54:59] Alison: Yes. Okay. 

[00:55:01] Britnee: Each state is different.

[00:55:02] Britnee: Each state varies. But in Georgia, you have to have a board with a minimum of three people. Okay. It's also in the Georgia laws, if I remember correctly, don't quote me on this, but in the Georgia laws, I believe it is also illegal to have a monopoly or like, like I can't be president and my husband be vice president and my son be treasurer.

[00:55:23] Britnee: Sure. Why? Because we're all the same family and I could convince them to go along with whatever it is I need, you know. So and obviously the bigger the board, I now have 12 members on my board this year. It's a lot of opinions you have to juggle, you know, and I do recommend I have one particular lady on my board and I told her when I asked her to come on board, I said, your job is to be difficult.

[00:55:52] Britnee: You know, and, and she's like, and she is a financial planner, right? And I'm like, your job is to ask all the questions I don't want to answer. I'm like everything, like, and bless her heart. She does that job so well. I'm like scared to bring up things in meetings now because I'm like, she's going to ask me questions, but, but that is her job.

[00:56:13] Britnee: And you need somebody like that. To keep you in check because my inability to say no drives my treasure bonkers because she's like, we don't have the money for this. And I'm like, well, get it. Don't worry about it. It'd be fine. You know? And then I have the other person over here going, I have a question.

[00:56:28] Britnee: And I'm like, no, no, do not ask questions, you know, but she asked all the good questions, but you need somebody like that. And that is, that is what she is there for, you know, she is there to make everybody in the room uncomfortable and she does not care. You know, she's like, I'm going to ask it, like it, leave it, lump it.

[00:56:45] Britnee: I don't care. I'm asking, you know, but that's her job. And if you don't have somebody to keep you in check like that, then you'll get into trouble pretty quickly. 

[00:56:55] Alison: Yeah, I can, I can see how you would need that a tough spot person to help keep you aligned, you know? Right. So that you can meet your goals because otherwise you'd be like, we're doing it. It's totally fine. And then everybody's exhausted and burned out and you don't want to do that. You want to be able to keep the longevity. 

[00:57:10] Alison: Right. So, okay. So then pivoting just a little bit, because I'm curious and I've seen in my daughter's middle school, it's a, oh man, what kind of, it's a, not a bulldog, a Frenchie. It's a Frenchie. It's a. Uh, fringy therapy dog at my daughter's middle school and the kids just love her to death. And I think that it is such an effective way to work with children. And I'm just curious. So how does your therapy program work? Like you were saying that a lot of times you'll have dogs. That'll be in the pipeline to be a service dog, but they don't quite meet the qualifications for a service dog for a task specifically, but maybe they're a fantastic therapy dog. They call they're called job transfers. Right? That's. So the dogs don't fail out of the service dog program. They just have job transfers. , So are your therapy dogs dogs that have had job transfers or are your dogs specifically do you have dogs that you specifically trained for therapy

[00:58:07] Britnee: We have all the above. Oh, I have job transfers I have people that own dogs that brought them to be in the therapy dogs And I also have dogs that I bring in that we may be training and I may notice real quickly Like for example, I have a Dalmatian here.

[00:58:23] Britnee: His name is Coda. I got Coda I decided to keep him. I was going to train him for my son and I was like, okay But then I noticed really quickly on that Coda loves You Everybody. Everybody. Like, loves everybody. Now, he will work for my son. He is trained in service dog work, but we now, I guess you'd call it dual service him.

[00:58:49] Britnee: He has two different vests. When he's got his service vest on, he's with my son. When he's got his therapy vest on, he is loving on everybody. Like, he just, he loves kids. So we sort of, you can sort of tell these things just like you can tell if a dog likes a man more than a woman or a certain type of person over a certain type of person, you can tell all of that.

[00:59:12] Britnee: And if you've got a dog that really loves children, Just people and really loves kids. Well, we'll sort of pull that dog and go. Okay, either we're gonna have to like break it spirit Not let it be social or we can slide it over here and let it be social and just make its day, you know And so we sort of have those that come up as well, but we do all three And with the school so we work specifically with Effingham County School District here They have an amazing page.

[00:59:41] Britnee: I can send it to you too. But yeah, but they They've just put an order in for 16 therapy dogs. We have six dogs working there this year. We had two, two working there last year. They're all assigned to administrators and or counselors that work within the school system. So they work in special education classrooms.

[01:00:03] Britnee: They work with anxiety test days, reading in the library. They work with behavioral students in the principal's office. Like you name it, these dogs are all over the place. And then there's one dog specifically that works for the district. So that dog travels all around to all of the schools. And it's funny, you brought up a Frenchie.

[01:00:23] Britnee: We have also noticed that smaller dogs do better In a school system not that bigger dogs are bad, but when you are dealing with a school system, you have a wide variety of children, you have a wide variety of backgrounds, and I don't know if it's, like, true everywhere, but here where we're located in Georgia, a lot of times, the minority children, are terrified of large dogs.

[01:00:51] Britnee: And I don't know if it's a, if it's due to a circumstance due to something they're taught due to the background, whatever, but there's good, like I could bring. Our dog in, Hilo, he's 120 pounds, and they will all gasp and back up from him. But I can bring in a little 20 pound Flufferdoodle, you know, and they're like, Oh my God!

[01:01:12] Britnee: You know, so it's kind of, it kind of varies, but smaller dogs have proven to do better in a situation when you're dealing with children who may be terrified of bigger dogs. Now with the older students, the high schoolers and so forth, they seem to like the bigger dogs better. But especially when you're dealing with kindergartners, first grade, second grade, they all like the little doggies better.

[01:01:35] Britnee: So that's, that's just one of the things that, that we've, we've noticed. And even our therapy dogs that work in the pediatric facilities. Owen is a standard poodle, so he's 60 pounds. He looks like he's 100 with hair, but he's 60 pounds. And then we have a Vizsla and she's tiny. She's maybe 50 pounds that works in there.

[01:01:58] Britnee: So, and she doesn't have any hair, you know, so she's just skinny and leggy. And those do really well too. So, I mean, but it kind of, it kind of varies also with school systems, too, what I have found, depending upon the demographics that you serve. A lot of school systems are requesting the hypoallergenic dogs.

[01:02:18] Britnee: Yeah. So, so that parents can't say, Oh, well, my kids have an allergy or come up with an excuse as to why the dog should not be there, you know? But there's a lot of arguments around that, but I can say in our, in our Effingham County school district, we have dogs of all kinds. We have labs, we have Springer Spaniels, we have everything that sheds magical glitter fibers of love, you know, and haven't had an allergy complaint yet.

[01:02:43] Britnee: Yeah. So it seems to work, I mean, and that's just, that's just preference because none of the handlers wanted a poodle. Like they were like, Nope, I don't like the way they look. I don't like the way they do. I don't want one. I'm like, okay. Yeah. 

[01:02:55] Alison: It's 

[01:02:56] Britnee: interesting. Yeah. 

[01:02:58] Alison: That's interesting. So my experience with, , freedom service dogs is that they've had a really hard time with poodles getting through training. And I think for them, and I don't want to, , speak like out of, out of turn or anything, but I think that. , so the way that freedoms, , training pipeline works is that there are puppies there for eight weeks with mom and then the puppies go to a puppy raiser for a year. And then they come back to the facility here in Denver and they go through what. , quote unquote college, right? Where they're getting their, , their, or they're task oriented. You know, if they're going through. You know, polished up and getting ready to get turned over, learning their tasks and, , and getting them turned over to a handler. And then the, and they try to do all of that pipeline in like six months, because it is stressful for them to be in the kennel, which is where I come in as a weekend foster, you know, I go pick up the dog up on Friday afternoon. It stays at my house until Monday morning, I take it back and then it goes back working Monday through Friday. You know, it comes back to my house on the weekend, and then they found that that has kind of helped them get through that six month period where they're in the kennel, because they have not had a very good success with the poodle because. , because of that time in the kennel, it seems to really stress the poodles out a lot. And that's really hard because they have a lot of people that are specifically needing a hypoallergenic dog. So it's, you know, that's, that's really challenging for sure. And then, , and this is kind of random, but if, if you ha, if we have a person who's listening to the show and they're like, you know, I, I want to do that. 

[01:04:30] Alison: I have. I have this dog, I think it would be a great therapy dog. What advice would you have for that person? Like what, what direction would you go? Because I feel like I saw something somewhere and correct me if I'm wrong, but that you're really a stickler. I don't know if that's the right word, but like that there's so many people that just throw a vest on their dog and they're like my dogs or service dog or my dogs therapy dog. 

[01:04:52] Alison: And. We've all seen those dogs right so can you just talk on that a little bit on what actually is a therapy dog and a service dog and then kind of the recommended certifications if you will for for people that they would w that would want to carry the title of a therapy dog or service dog

[01:05:09] Britnee: So. Yes, I'm a stickler. I 

[01:05:14] Alison: thought I read something somewhere that was like, 

[01:05:16] Britnee: you know, Well, I think, I think people mean well. Okay, I'll start with that. People mean well, people have great intentions, but you're meaning well and you're great intentions, screw it up for everybody who's got a service dog.

[01:05:33] Britnee: And there's no other nice way to put it, right? I mean, there's no other blunt way to put it, unless you're just... Used expletives. But it's kind of like, okay, look, you have three types of dogs. You have an emotional support animal. That's the first one. That's the lowest one on the totem pole. That's the one where you can order all these fake paperwork and stuff off Amazon and get your little vest and take it.

[01:05:56] Britnee: Please don't do that. Like, please do not do that because it's not legitimate. And they're cracking down on it and people like me. Travel the country and teach all these apartment complexes and stuff, all of the HUD laws so they know where they stand. You're not going to get away with it for very long, like, please stop, but.

[01:06:12] Britnee: Emotional support animals are there to make you feel good when you get home. Okay, that's the definition of any pet You could have a frog You can have a fish. You can have a peacock. You can have a pig. You can have a turtle. Nobody cares We're not doubting the fact that the thing makes you feel good when you get home But the reality of it is is it's the definition of a pet.

[01:06:35] Britnee: We all have emotional support animals Yeah, so but that animal legally can only be in your house You They've now banned them from airlines. They used to be able to fly, but it can only be in your house. It cannot go in public unless it is open to everybody. Mm hmm. Do not show up and say it's your companion animal because it's not.

[01:07:01] Britnee: Leave Fido at home. That's where he belongs. He has no training. Leave him at home. Yeah, he's not required to have any training. Now next tier up is your therapy dogs. Your therapy dogs Our dogs that like people that like to be petted that do well in controlled environments. Now, what is the required training for a therapy dog?

[01:07:27] Britnee: Like I said earlier, we require our therapy dogs and our service dogs to pass all three of the AKC tests. So the Canine Good Citizens, the Community Canine, and the Urban Canine. Once our therapy dogs pass those three tests, they must then go pass The pet partners test, which is a therapy dog organization.

[01:07:49] Britnee: Pet partners then when they pass that test pet partners then gives them a certification that comes with insurance They're covered like the whole nine yards. Okay That's what we require. That's not necessarily what everybody else requires I have seen organizations where they only require the cgc and that's it.

[01:08:11] Britnee: It's basically a dog with good manners Okay That likes to be petted And that won't chew on your IV pole while you're in the hospital. Like that, I mean, that's pretty much it. But, at the same time, guess what? Therapy dogs serve groups of people. You cannot take your dog out in public with you to a restaurant and say it's a therapy dog and expect them to let you in.

[01:08:38] Britnee: Because it's not serving a group of people, it's with you. Okay, so it has to be in a hospital, nursing home, school, whatever, group of people, more than five, group of people, right? So that's, and they also do not have public access rights unless it is somewhere where everybody can go. Okay, same thing with an emotional support dog, only unless everybody can go.

[01:09:07] Britnee: Now, service dogs, service dogs must be trained to complete at least one task related to the disability and hit that task 90 percent of the time. Now here's a great difference. When you go out in public and somebody asks you, Oh, is that your service dog? And you say, well, yes, it's my anxiety dog. I don't need your diagnosis.

[01:09:35] Britnee: I just need to know is that a service dog and and there's two questions businesses can ask is it a service dog and What task does the service dog provide telling me? It's an anxiety dog is not a question that I asked that does not answer question number two You're telling me your diagnosis, which I did not ask for give me a task You know, and if you say oh it makes me feel better while I'm out in public That's not a task.

[01:10:05] Britnee: That's an emotional support dog. You know, so it's like, does he carry medication for you? Does he alert you when you have a panic attack and help you exit the building? Does he cut on lights? Does he perform CPR? Does he dial 9 1 1? Give me something I can go with, like something, and that would be a task.

[01:10:25] Britnee: Okay. Don't tell me he makes you feel good in public because that is an emotional support animal. That is a dog. That is anything else. Right. Service animals can only be dogs and miniature horses. Okay. So if you see mini horses in there, not a random, if you say pinky, the miniature horse, She's allowed to be there.

[01:10:48] Britnee: Okay. Wow. She's about the size of a great Dane. They're not much bigger. They're a little patter. They carry a poop bag on the back. That's the only benefit I wish. Like Great Dane and stuff could have. But if you see Pinky, the manage your horse, or Fido, the Great Dane, they're allowed to be there. Molly the cat.

[01:11:07] Britnee: Cat is not. 

[01:11:08] Alison: Interesting. I didn't know that, that it was just specific to dogs and

[01:11:15] Britnee: miniature horses. And a lot of times you'll see miniature horses at nursing homes. That's the only place I've ever seen them. They go and visit the, the cute elderly people and they're out there in the front and they just put up. But I've. I've seen pictures of a miniature horse on a plane. I have yet to experience that, but I can't imagine what that's like.

[01:11:34] Britnee: But they, but that's what it is. It's dogs and miniature horses. So for housing and the airplanes have to let them fly too, you know, but miniature horses, oftentimes when they are service animals, they are used for mobility only. So that is for pulling stuff, balancing stuff and so forth, just because they live forever.

[01:11:56] Britnee: And, you know, a large dog like that's only going to live 10 years, roughly a miniature horse will live 25. You know what I mean? So you've got a longer time frame. It's just a little harder to transport. I was going to 

[01:12:07] Alison: say, you know, 

[01:12:10] Britnee: yeah, but that is the difference between everything. And people who, when I talk about our therapy dog program.

[01:12:18] Britnee: And what we go through there's a reason why I said facility and educational usage only because if you called me and you said, Hey, I really want my dog to be a therapy dog because I want to take it to so and so nursing home on the weekends and to the, I'm going to tell you no. I'm going to tell you to go hire a local trainer, get your CGC, and find your local TDI tester because, and it's nothing bad, but people that do that are oftentimes the same people who will abuse the system.

[01:12:51] Britnee: So I don't need to add to the system. Like, I want a dog that's going to work in a facility full time. And when I say full time, I mean our dogs work five to six days a week, eight hours a day. You know, and so they have a full time job. If you want to do that on the weekend, I highly just encourage, it'll be way cheaper than hiring me, to go find a trainer, get your CGC, go find a local pet partner's TDI or somebody, take your test and then you're done.

[01:13:16] So what if someone was interested in finding out more about working with your organization, either volunteering or looking for a service dog? How would they get in touch with you? What would you recommend?

[01:13:28] Alison: So, yeah, 

[01:13:28] Britnee: if anybody's interested in a service dog in a facility or educational usage therapy dog or just donating to our program, they can find us on Facebook or Instagram under SD Gunner Fund. SD stands for service dog. Gunner, G U N N E R. But we also have a website, which is sdgunner.

[01:13:50] Britnee: org. You can find us there as well. We try to make it pretty easy on all platforms to make a donation. And obviously for all of our most recent updates, follow us on Facebook and social media, because that's where we post everything. But yeah, they can find us. In any of those. Yeah. 

[01:14:09] Alison: Well, I appreciate all the time that you have taken, , today to explain everything to us. And so September is service dog month. If you, if you weren't aware of listeners, so i appreciate you taking the time to go through all the ins and outs of how you got started and just built this nonprofit from the ground up and just i mean hats off and mad respect for everything that you've done and just really embracing and embodying that see a need felony fill a need and , what you've grown is just incredible and admirable so thank you so much for your time.

[01:14:43] Britnee: Thanks for having us again. We're glad to share. We love the show. So yeah. Yeah. 

[01:14:48] Alison: Thank you. .