My life saver forever

Prince is my life saver. He pulls me back in place when I feel like I’m going to loose it. He knows just when I need his love and attention.

Camping august 2018

During camping in Lac Saint Jean in August 2018. While hiking we stop by a fall to take this picture. He was happy and relax.

Wonderful Leo my bbf

We have a wonderful love story and he’s my sunshine every day !

he smiles in a way that makes me feel safe and happy 😊

Wonderful Leo my bbf

We have a wonderful love story and he’s my sunshine every day !

he smiles in a way that makes me feel safe and happy 😊

Savage English

Savage is a brown and white friendly Boston terrier. Picture of him riding in car one of his favorite things to do riding around.

Benson Bringing Love To Others

The Ronald McDonald House in Kansas City has a new friend to try and give love and support to those who need it.

“It’s been a long road,” said Marquisha Reed, who has a child at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

Her 6-month-old son, Ezra, just had his second heart surgery. With her other two children at home in Wichita, Reed has spent more than a month at the Ronald McDonald House in Kansas City alone. That’s where pup Benson comes in.

“It is a stress relief to be able to just sit relax and play with the puppy,” Reed said.

The Ronald McDonald House recently added the fully trained service dog just to hang out and comfort more than 87 families who are currently staying there.

“Provide some comfort, some playfulness, some love when you need it most,” said Tami Greenberg, CEO of the Ronald McDonald House Kansas City.

“We can’t give a mom a hug after having a horrible day at the hospital, so Benson gets to do that for us,” said dog handler Kelley Van Towle.

Benson is a 2-year-old burner-doodle who has a job that is all about love.

“They’re here because their child is seriously ill and they need extra love, extra support sometimes the kind that no human can give,” Greenberg said.

“There’s like very limited physical contact with anybody so when you need a hug and you don’t have anyone there, it’s great to have something,” Reed said.

Ronald McDonald House says the families can walk or play with the dog.

Benson is replacing a longtime house pet but he’s the first fully trained service dog at the home.

Max the Boston Terrier

Max is an eye catcher, and charmer as his breeds nickname “The American Gentleman” serves him well. He is incredibly talented at picking up emotions, especially during times of distress. When max starts to feel this, he will begin to show me he is here, by a paw or a head nudge. Without judgement, without impurity’s he lets me know he understands, and that’s okay with me.

Service Dogs Helping Veterans

Six years after Warrior Freedom Service Dogs was established, the organization is expanding their one of a kind program that connects veterans to trained service dogs rescued from local animal shelters.

Executive Director Adam Keith says the organization’s main goal is to help veterans reconnect with society, while providing service dogs with a loving home.

“The main goal is to reconnect these veterans who fought for us, when they come home, it’s our duty to take over and help them, you know, get reconnected back into society and it’s not an easy task for them. So to just shine the light on that, partner with a dog that we work through local shelters so they become service dogs – so it’s like a repurpose for them too,” says Keith.

Training Director Julie Jones-Thorton says that the service dogs are uniquely equipped to handle veterans struggling with PTSD. Aside from offering comfort, they can even sense when their cortisol levels are rising, and can alert them when they need to take action to reduce their stress.

“The dog gives them the confidence to be able to go outside their home, to go to the grocery store, to go to their doctor’s appointments, the chiropractor – we have one that goes and sits while he does his martial arts class. They also provide tasks out for those veterans, they provide space. They actually learn to indicate when cortisol levels are rising,” says Jones-Thorton.

The Warrior Freedom Dogs are hoping to raise awareness about their mission to connect veterans suffering with PTSD with a service dog, free of charge.

Their program already has ten graduates and eleven dogs have been rescued.

Puppy In Training Visits

Students in teacher Michelle Bettler’s fifth-grade class at PVPV Rawlings Elementary School were in for a treat last week as Marie Massie from K9s For Warriors brought in one of her service dogs to meet the children.

Massie has raised many dogs for the K9s For Warriors, and this is not the first time she made an appearance at PVPV Rawlings to teach the children about the important work she does.

The puppies Massie raises stay with her until they are old enough to go to the kennels, where they will then receive the proper training to certify them as service dogs.

Moondog, the puppy Massie brought to visit Bettler’s class this year, is a 6-month-old English lab preparing to receive official training. The puppy got its name after Massie’s friend Bill “Moon” Mullins, a retired veteran and cancer survivor.

“It is a good experience for [the students] to learn about veterans and about PTSD,” said Bettler. “They are in fifth grade so they process it really well, and they understand now that if they see dogs with vests on what that means.”

Bettler and PVPV Rawlings Elementary have been exposing their students to the importance of K9s For Warriors for years now.

Two years ago, they hosted an event named “Ten Small Steps of Kindness, One Giant Leap for K9s,” where students completed acts of kindness in exchange for donations. All donations went toward sponsoring a puppy at K9s For Warriors, whom the class nicknamed Rawly. Rawly is predicted to graduate within the next year on behalf of the students and faculty at PVPV Rawlings Elementary.

Leading up to Veteran’s Day on Nov. 11, Bettler’s class learned about the importance of service animals and the significance of the K9s For Warriors organization.

“The culminating experience of everything is having the dog come to class,” Bettler said. “It is important for [the students] to get a better appreciation for the sacrifice that veterans made while serving the country.”

Each year the students write letters to veterans and to the K9s For Warriors project after the puppy makes its visit. The letters are a perfect example of just how much students retain from the experience.

“We made it our mission to support this particular organization,” Bettler said. “The kids absolutely love it.”

♥️♥️🐾 F.O.R.E.V.E.R🐾 ♥️♥️

My Little Saving Grace ♥️

Mix Breed 🐾

Charlotte at a year old

Charlotte is a great, loving, and caring dog who is my best friend. She has helped me through a lot in the last 3 years since having her.

Showing off as usual 😜

Tiny always makes my day 🌄

He is my 11 year old emotional support dog 🐾

So funny the way he plays, with his cute under bite smile.

And the way he turns his head when I talk to him.

Luna is my champion🏆

Luna is my champion🏆. She is picking up, on her training extremely well. A very smart 🤓 girl indeed🐾🐾🐾🐾

The Ying to my yang

She is my light, my rock and the Ying to my yang, I wouldn’t be here without her unconditional love and support.

Veteran And His Service Dog

Veteran Louis Belluomini has an important message to share.

And on Veterans Day, he’ll share it with the nation as a guest on “The Rachael Ray Show.”

The Findlay man will appear before a national audience Wednesday to discuss his work as a paramedic during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what it’s like to have a mask-clad, goggle-wearing, four-legged sidekick riding on the ambulance with him. His is a story that’s been shared over the past four years in The Courier, but one whose chapters continue to be written.

Belluomini served nine years in the U.S. Army as a psychological operations specialist and military police officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was honorably discharged as a captain in 2015 and returned to Findlay as a broken man. A traumatic brain injury and debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder left him on edge and barely able to get through his shifts as a paramedic.

Vivid nightmares woke him up in the night and challenged his health and safety, along with his relationship as a newlywed. He and wife Jessica knew something had to change, especially with a new baby on the way.

As fate would have it, the couple learned of a nonprofit organization based in Florida called K9s for Warriors, the largest K9/veteran pairing agency in the country. Belluomini began training with Star, then a year-old golden retriever/Labrador mix, who would go on to change his life in ways unimaginable at the time of their pairing in 2016.

Star gave Belluomini the emotional support he needed to make it through grueling days at the EMS station. She made him feel safe during everyday activities like grocery shopping and driving on the interstate, and she immediately learned to sense when Belluomini was having a nightmare and how to gently shake him from his sleep. Star also became an inseparable playmate to the couple’s son, Silvio.

By Belluomini’s side 24/7, Star also became the first known service dog in America to ride on an ambulance, and continues to work alongside Belluomini as a part-time employee of Putnam County EMS. Pictures of Star, now 5 years old, outfitted in a mask, goggles and booties during the coronavirus pandemic, have circled the internet and may just be what caught the eye of producers at “The Rachael Ray Show.”

Belluomini’s interview with the celebrity chef, known for her love of dogs and her own line of dog food, was done last week via Zoom. Viewers in the Findlay area can tune in to WTVG at 10 a.m. Wednesday to watch the show. Belluomini said everyone on the show’s team went out of their way to make him feel relaxed and comfortable, and Ray herself was “super nice” and engaged during their virtual conversation. Ray even took the time to offer a personal hello to Jessica, after hearing that she was a fan of the show.

During his interview, Belluomini described working in Putnam County, which like many portions of rural America has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus over the past several months.

“I would say probably the majority of our calls are either COVID-positive or COVID-potential,” Belluomini said.

He explained that while it is standard practice for EMT’s to wear gloves when responding to emergency calls, masks were formerly optional. Belluomini said the pandemic has likely shifted the industry standard to paramedics always wearing masks, as an added safety precaution for themselves and their patients.

When a call comes in for a COVID-19 patient, team members must don a gown, gloves, goggles and an N95 or higher mask. The same goes for Star, who seems to have no qualms at all about masking up and heading to the scene of an accident or an ambulance run.

“If I’m taking the precaution, typically she is, too,” he said of the necessary PPE. “Even our dogs on the front lines are able to be safe and help protect others.”

Belluomini has also become an advocate at the local and national levels for the many benefits a service dog can provide veterans and others struggling with mental health issues. He is committed to educating the public on how to — or, more accurately, how not to — interact with service dogs when they encounter them in public. He and Star were even featured in a five-time-Emmy-winning documentary, “A New Leash on Life: The K9s for Warriors Story.”

He used his opportunity on the show to encourage other veterans who are struggling to seek help.

“Because of the stress and the world we’re in now … having a service dog can benefit so many of the frontline heroes,” Belluomini said.

Veterans Week

Veterans from across the country travel to Branson to celebrate veterans week, and now some of those heroes will return home with a new furry friend.

Frank Schlechta, a disabled veteran from Texas, made the trip this morning to meet his new Saint Bernard. “She’s just such a great puppy! She’s beautiful! Oh my God, she’s beautiful!”

Schlechta’s new service dog will be able to help stabilize him as he tries to walk.

“She’s going to be big enough to where when I start falling backwards, she’ll be able to keep me from hitting the deck, you know, hitting the ground.”

Sue Swanigan began Woof for Vets to help those who have sacrificed for their country. Veterans fill out an application for the type of dog they would like and what services they may need. Then Woof for Vets finds the dogs from local breeders, and they handle all of the medical and training expenses before delivering to their new companions.

“This one was a surprise. And so Frank knew he was getting a dog, but he didn’t know what kind. So, all of a sudden it was a surprise when we put it in his lap and that always makes you feel good in your heart.” said Swanigan.

Service Dogs For Veterans

The Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) has launched a new virtual lecture series, sponsored by IDEXX. The series will feature varying topics that are centered around research on the health benefits of the human-animal bond and the importance of veterinary medicine in strengthening human-animal bonds.

The first lecture, which is set to launch on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, will focus on the efficacy of service dogs for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will feature Marguerite E. O’Haire, Ph.D., associate professor at Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. O’Haire will discuss her published study, “Preliminary efficacy of service dogs as a complementary treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder in military members and veterans,” and her ongoing research on the impacts of a service dog as a complementary treatment for veterans with PTSD.

“The IDEXX Human-Animal Bond Lecture Series highlights pivotal research on the health benefits of the human-animal bond and the importance of veterinary medicine in strengthening human-animal bonds,” officials said in a statement.

Service Dogs Program

Shawn Pederson, Army Sgt. First Class Chuck Stewart and Senior Master Sgt. Diana Trevino — it is these honorable servicemen and woman and many others like them that are deserving of our salute today.

All across the country, veterans are being honored on this annual Veterans Day, Nov. 11. At a 10-acre plot of ground in Lenoir City, a new training facility is being unveiled that will provide helpful companions for those veterans coming home with physical and/or psychological challenges due to their service to country. Smoky Mountain Service Dogs held its grand opening ceremony Nov. 2 in Lenoir City on its $1.3 million facility that will allow this nonprofit to continue its mission of training mobility assistance service dogs to U.S. veterans at no cost to them. Due to COVID-19, the ceremony to unveil the Veteran/Canine Training Center wasn’t open to the public.Pederson, Stewart and Trevino are three of the 40 veterans who have received dogs from the organization so far. Founders are Mike and Suzy Kitchens; Mike is a Vietnam veteran and Suzy is a graduate of Everett High Schools, born and raised in Maryville.

The trained canines have names like Cade, Dagger, Spirit, Nitro, Dolly and Gauge. Four-footed heroes with wet noses some recipients have said.

After two and a half years of planning, fundraising and building, SMSD is moving from its original 1,000-square-foot home and into one with 7,500-square-feet and state-of-the-art equipment.

The facility includes an area where meetings can be held, office space for SMSD’s trainers and program manager, large dining/meeting space and most importantly, training space and 18 kennels for housing the dogs. The property also allows for five exercise yards. While a grand opening ceremony was held Nov. 2, the dogs will be moving in sometime around the end of November.

The veterans who are accepted into the program come here for training with their dogs. During this pandemic, Program Manager Heather Wilkerson devised an online educational program to cut down on in-person time. Training with the veterans lasts for two weeks.

Sometimes it’s the little things that bring the most joy, like having a dog grooming area complete with commercial washer and dryer and a bath tub. A high pressure water system will allow for sanitizing the kennels. All inside will be comfortable with air conditioning and heating. This new facility also has a medical exam room.

Each time a veteran and his or her dog completes the program, SMSD holds a passing of the leash ceremony for all who played a part in the successful training. In past years, the ceremonies have been held at a church in Tellico Village, but COVID-19 put a stop to that. The ceremonies are now being held at the new SMSD facility, Suzy Kitchens said. It is a more intimate setting with fewer people, she explained. All of this is done with only five paid staff members: Program Manager Heather Wilkerson, trainers Susan Randall, Cassie Krause, Laura Porter and facilities manager Darrell Wilkerson. Suzy Kitchens volunteers as veterans liaison. Mike Kitchens is volunteer chair.

The Kitchens founded the nonprofit in 2010 and placed its first dog in 2013.

On a recent day, Randall was training one of the golden retrievers, Hondo, in the new kennel. SMSD gets puppies when they are only 8 weeks old. Training takes two to three years. Puppy raisers assist with initial behavior training before the certified trainers take over.

“We train six to seven a year,” Suzy Kitchens said. “We have hit that mark every year for quite some time. Now with our new place, we can do 10 to 12 dogs per year.”

The cost of the training is $25,000 per dog, she added. They mostly use Labrador Retrievers.

Because SMSD is a regional facility, it provides service dogs to veterans across eight states. It is one of 70 nationally accredited service dog organizations in the U.S. and one of 185 internationally, Kitchens said.

Accreditation must be done every five years, and this was SMSD’s year. The onsite inspection was held days ago. “We passed with flying colors,” Kitchens said. She said being accredited is important because the VA has a service dog benefits program. Those benefits are only given to veterans who have dogs trained by an accredited member, she explained.

Fence building was being completed this week. Darrell Wilkerson said the original completion date for this project wasn’t met due to weather and other setbacks. The groundbreaking, he said, was held in May 2019.“The trainers were working in an area that was the size of one of these rooms,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming but this is huge.”

Suzy Kitchens was quick to point out none of this could have been done without the help of Blount County and others. Altar’d State, headquartered in Maryville, funded the kennels and has its name on the facility. The conference room is named for the late Gary Lindsey, an avid fisherman who resided in Blount County. Several other partners have come into this circle to help, Kitchens said.

The large volunteer base is crucial, too. Kitchens said they have 170 who donate their time.

Over the years, Kitchens has heard back from veterans about what it means to have a canine companion on those bad days. Depression can set in. Physical limitations can be overwhelming. Kitchens said one Vietnam veteran had all but given up.

Before he got his service dog, he didn’t think he would live beyond a year or two, Kitchens said. “He told me, ‘After I got my dog, I wanted to live life more than I ever have.’”

Another veteran told Kitchens about having nightmares. He said his service dog inched his way closer and closer to him until he awoke out of the nightmare, even licking his sweat.

It’s now time to focus on the future and what SMSD will be able to do for more of this country’s veterans, Kitchens said, looking around at what has been accomplished.

“Now that we have built this, the mission continues with our sustaining partners,” Kitchens said. “We have achieved our goal of building a new facility and now we can sustain the mission.”

Service Dogs Help Warriors

Yakima resident Albert Navarro served for four years in the U.S. Navy, was stationed in the Washington, D.C., area following Sept. 11, and completed two tours of the Persian Gulf before receiving an honorable discharge.

Despite the post-traumatic stress he picked up from his service, Navarro said he was able to get back to a type of civilian life he considered “normal.” He and his wife even had a child on the way.

But when the couple’s infant son died shortly after birth, Navarro and his wife struggled to cope with the loss. He suggested they try counseling, and so found himself in a VA Hospital waiting room, thumbing through a brochure left on a nearby table that he had no intention of actually reading.

The trick was to “look busy.” If he looked busy, then that would signal to other people to not engage, to not start a conversation, to leave him alone. Navarro used the trick frequently, in any waiting room, line or situation where he was around other people and otherwise unoccupied.

The comment from his social worker, at the end of his session, therefore caught him off guard. “Maybe a service dog would help.”

When he asked about the comment, the social worker pointed out he had been paging through the brochure on service dogs while waiting for the appointment. Navarro said he and his wife had talked about getting a dog during the pregnancy. He didn’t believe his random choice of reading material was a coincidence.

He went online and started learning more about Service Peace Warriors, a nonprofit organization based in Eltopia, a community about 15 miles north of Pasco, that connects honorably discharged military personnel coping with PTSD in Washington state with certified service dogs, free of charge.

Service Peace Warriors is how Ranger, a German shepherd/shar-pei mix, joined the Navarros’ lives. Navarro said there were days before Ranger when he didn’t want to get out of bed. Now, Navarro knows he has to get up, feed Ranger and take him for a walk. Ranger accompanies him “practically everywhere,” he said.

“The military teaches you how to be a service member, but they don’t teach you how to be a civilian again,” Navarro said. “(With Ranger) I’ve learned to get out a little bit more, to accept that he’ll tell me if we need to go. He’s not a pet. He’s a working dog, and he’s family.”

Service Peace Warriors has trained and connected about 50 dogs to veterans over the last seven years, including about 18 dogs this year. Three are with veterans living in Yakima.

“These veterans often have suffered beyond our understanding and are deserving of our support,” the Service Peace Warriors website notes. “These dogs open up a new world to them that they didn’t know they could have. With trauma issues, it is a gift to have the company of a dog who provides unconditional, loving companionship.”

The healing journey for Mary Mattox, who founded Service Peace Warriors, also involved a canine companion.

Mattox was born in New Zealand and moved to the United States when she was 17 years old. She has complex PTSD. She experienced more than a decade of abuse, first at the hands of a violent and controlling mother, then while in various placements in the foster care system. For years, not knowing what post-traumatic stress disorder was, she struggled to understand her trauma. She found a sense of comfort working with sheep dogs, farm animals, and then the first service dog she trained for herself.

Mattox describes Cloud, the German shepherd who came into her life in 2013, as the first warrior dog who led the way for all the other dogs she has since trained. When Cloud was about 6 months old, Mattox suffered from a major attack of PTSD that temporarily left her both blind and deaf. Cloud helped guide Mattox to her husband, who rushed her to the emergency room. The doctors told her they were surprised her blood pressure levels hadn’t led to a stroke.

“He was a big gentleman, our Cloud,” she said, “and he opened the doors for all this to happen, because he saved my life.”

Mattox trains Service Peace Warrior dogs to perform specific tasks, such as waking up veterans in the midst of night terrors, getting help from bystanders in a store if a veteran starts to have an episode, or standing behind a veteran in line so that no one will come up and startle the person.

The dogs can be trained to remind veterans to eat or take medicines, and to climb into their laps if veterans are starting to get depressed or anxious. They also are good listeners for veterans who may not be able to otherwise share their troubles with family members or close friends, Mattox added.

“Dogs are the most loyal creatures on God’s Earth,” Mattox said. “They’ll comfort you when needed. They’ll give their lives for you if needed. They give you a sense of security.”

Any veteran matched with a Service Peace Warrior dog goes through a thorough process. To be eligible, veterans have to have been honorably discharged and have PTSD from their service. They also go through an interview process with Mattox and an initial meeting with several dogs to make sure both feel a connection.

“We are very strict about how we do things,” Mattox said. “When we give a dog to a veteran, he really needs to be in need. And I like to see some interaction, to make sure it’s a good match. If the dog picks you, you get a better bond.” While canine Cloud helped start Mattox on a path to healing herself and others, she’s had to continue the work without him. A driver who was texting and driving ran over Cloud in September 2019, a loss Mattox still feels deeply.

It’s now the organization, her service dogs and the veterans they help that help Mattox get out of bed in the mornings.

That same sense of purpose resonates with Navarro. On a chilly day in November, he demonstrated canine training he’s done with Ranger in a warm and well-lit room in his home in Yakima. His daily routines and connection with Ranger have helped reestablish a sense of normalcy in his life.

“I’m not saying you forget the things you’ve been through,” he said. “But they start to go to the back burner.”

Navarro absolutely recommends that dog-loving veterans struggling with PTSD reach out for a service dog.

“While faith is a very important part of my life, and family and friends are a big reason that I am still here, Ranger has helped me a lot,” he said. “A dog won’t judge you. That’s the simplest way I can explain it.”

Mattox encouraged veterans struggling with PTSD and in need of a trained canine companion to start the process — to pick up the phone and call for more information or jump on the website and learn more. Staff is willing to help make the application process as simple as possible, she added.

“If you think they’re too far gone …” She paused. “We’ve had numerous ones that have walked right off suicide watch, who made it six months or a year without even receiving the dog because they knew they had something to look forward to. They are never too far gone.”

Training And Rehabilitation Service

A local military veteran has transformed his passion for working with dogs into his own pet therapy business.

Enrique Marquez, who served in the United States Army, founded his dog training and rehabilitation company, Dogworx, in 2016.

He says his military career took him all over the world, including Kosovo and Iraq. Marquez’s time in the Army eventually brought him to the Savannah area, and he loved it so much that he decided to stay.

“I think it was a good place to kind of have a fresh start,” the entrepreneur told WSAV NOW.

Marquez says he’s always had a knack for working with dogs and volunteered as a dog catcher on his time off from the Army.

“Even my family members saw that whenever I interacted with a dog, it was just an instant connection, and the dog just followed me everywhere,” Marquez said. “The military was what really brought out that passion in me to the point where I saw that this is something that I could do every day.”

He says following his deployments, he encountered some personal struggles.

“My life was out of control, and when I came back, my dog was the thing that kept me in balance,” Marquez said.

“I was very close to making some bad choices when it comes to those feelings, and my dog kind of shifted my mind around on that,” he said.

Wanting to return the favor to his beloved pet, he says he worked to better train his Belgian Malinois to be more well-behaved.

“I realized that a lot of those techniques were able to be transferred onto humans, so I used them all myself,” Marquez shared, adding, “In essence, as I was training my dog, I was healing myself, I was finding answers for the problems that I had, I found different ways to go about things.”

These experiences led him to found Dogworx, allowing him to serve as a life coach and trainer for both dogs and their owners.

Marquez’s goal is to work with puppies and adult dogs that have behavioral issues, including aggression, anxiety and basic manners.

“A lot of it is really just teaching them how to make better choices, that’s really it,” Marquez said, adding that the time it trains each dog comes down to the individual animal.

“If they don’t know what the right thing to do is, how can they do that for you?” he asked.

“Once they understand that you don’t have to be aggressive to get your food, you don’t have to break the windows because there’s a thunderstorm happening, there’s a better way to do this, dogs will always pick the better choice,” Marquez said. “Once they understand that, it’s smooth sailing.”

He notes that many behaviors that people observe in their dogs are a reflection of what’s going on in their own lives.

“If your dog is aggressive, that means there’s something going on in the family that is causing that reaction, or the dog is anxious, fearful, there is a reason that’s happening,” Marquez said.

He says social media sites like Instagram and Facebook have played a large role in growing his Savannah business beyond the Coastal Empire.

Marquez tells WSAV NOW that clients as far away as California and the United Kingdom have reached out to him for his dog therapy services.

Facebook also invited him to speak at its headquarters in 2019 for the company’s business leader’s summit.

“I was super lucky, it was a great experience,” Marquez said.

“I got to share not only my story, but the lessons that I learned along the way on how to use Facebook and Instagram, not to make sales, but to connect with people,” he said.

The dog trainer says he wants to encourage pet owners that there is hope for even the worst-behaved pet owners.

“Even though it may seem like there’s nothing that can be done, there are people that know how to help not only your dog but also help you and your family so you can all enjoy your life together,” Marquez said. “I’ve devoted my life to it.”