Filling the Gap - Leash of Hope Assistance Dogs

It's a long process, and it's not cheap. We chat with the founders of Leash of Hope Assistance Dogs who are doing everything possible to meet the demand for service dogs to help the world become more accessible for people with disabilities.

TRANSCRIPT

Filling the Gap - Leash of Hope Assistance Dogs

 

00:04

We are back with DDA's Encouraging Abilities podcast, where we talk about all things related to disabilities. I'm your host, DDA Communications Manager, Evan Kelly. Today we are joined by Danielle Main and Tessa Schmidt, who are founded Leash of Hope Assistance Dogs. I've wanted to talk to them for a little while now. That of course sums up what that is. We're talking about doggos. We're big fans of dogs here at DDA and anything that makes things more accessible for people with physical or developmental disabilities.

 

00:34

Thank you for joining me today. My pleasure. Thank you. All righty. So Danielle, tell me a little bit about yourself. So as mentioned, I'm one of the co-founders of Leash of Hope. One of the things that we're very proud about, and I'm very proud about is the fact that our organization is run by two women that both have disabilities. I am low vision blind with optic nerve dysplasia.

 

01:03

And amongst running Leash of Hope, I'm also a full-time registered massage therapist and train as a competitive rower. So, oh, wow. That's a that's a lot of physicality going on. Yeah. And Tessa, what about yourself? I. I have a special career, and my main role in Leash of Hope is to train the dogs and the clients.

 

01:33

And alongside of that, I work with children as a BI. Oh, okay. That's interesting. So did you both found Leash of Hope Assistance Dogs? Or is this mainly your thing, Danielle? We both found it together. So when Tess and I came together, we both had...

 

02:01

very complimentary skill sets. And we noticed that there was a need within the industry and the community of people with disabilities that we felt like with our unique skill sets that we could kind of bridge a gap and fill. So the two of us together, me having more business background and my background with dogs was, more dogs with like behavioral issues. And then Tessa having a more formal background education and...

 

02:30

service dogs and dog training. We felt like our skills were very complimentary to be able to start something from the ground up. So what is your background with dogs?

 

02:43

So my, oh sorry, go ahead. No, Danny, I think that was in the... Oh, I'm so sure. So my background with dogs, first and foremost my education was doing equine sports massage, which led into extracurricular education in canine massage, and from there I spent some time working in vet clinics and then as well as

 

03:12

working in a grooming salon as a grooming assistant, as well as being a professional border for dogs, especially dogs with behavioral or medical needs. So that was my background with dogs before starting Le Chappot. And what about you, Tessa? I apprenticed under several service dog trainers.

 

03:39

that works with multiple different organizations and have learned a lot through hands-on and working with the Balanceable Canine Program as well. Wow, that's interesting. Now, Danielle, equine massage, canine massage, is that... I mean, equine massage, I've got friends who get involved in horses, so I understand sort of the need for that, but I've never heard of canine massage before. Is that a thing that people... Like,

 

04:09

look for that kind of a service? The main reason why I would get requests for that type of service would be anything from like dogs that were in some kind of sport, same as kind of with people, same as with horses. And, you know, the dogs might have very physical sport needs of whether it's dogs that are doing like agility or barn hunt or any kind of like,

 

04:38

canny cross and so just like people end up developing aches and pains and imbalances and then I'd also work on a lot of like steamer dogs with aches and pains and imbalances so Interesting So you you started Leash of Hope because you saw a need tell me tell me about that in you know I'm not someone who identifies with a disability so I Wouldn't recognize the need for a service animal or a service dog what?

 

05:07

What are the barriers that people are facing in order to access this type of service?

 

05:16

Um, so I would say that the biggest barrier would be availability, especially for properly trained dogs and the most evident way that that can be seen is the amount of people that are trying to self evaluate the necessity for dog and then train on their own because they don't feel like the resources are available for them to get.

 

05:44

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