A service dog for Story

Hello! My name is Story and I am starting this fundraiser to help me raise the money I need to train my psychiatric service dog. Many people have seen service dogs, often supporting people with physical disabilities such as blindness. Psychiatric service dogs are trained to help people with invisible disabilities such as PTSD. These service dogs can significantly improve the quality of life for people with psychiatric disabilities. Unlike a pet or an emotional support dog, service animals can go anywhere in public with their handlers and can accompany them to school, work, travel, and other places of high stress. Some services they can provide for their handlers are: -interrupting anxious behaviors to avoid escalation and panic attacks -interrupting anxiety attacks and panic responses -grounding/providing deep pressure therapy -retrieving medication or finding help from others -creating space around handler in crowded areas -relief from sensory overload -waking handler up from night terrors I have PTSD and my family and I have been looking for ways to support me in improving my quality of life. The best way I’ve received help has been through working with animals. I’ve been in equine therapy (therapy where you work with horses and donkeys) for over a year now and it has worked a million times better for me than any other kind of therapy. My experience with that kind of healing has led me to truly believe that a psychiatric service dog would be able to help me in ways that no person ever could. I’m planning to go through the psychiatric service dog training program with Dog Training Elite Denver . This program will help me through everything from finding the right dog for my needs to helping me work to train them alongside professionals. My dog and I will go through twelve weeks of training with a private trainer along with a year of group classes. They’ll learn obedience, public access skills, and service tasks throughout that time, and take the canine good citizen test and final testing for service dog certification. This training program is specifically important to me because it will allow me to be involved with my dog throughout the entire training process instead of just sending them away for training. All funds raised will go directly towards the adoption fees for a shelter dog and the cost of the service dog training program through Dog Training Elite Denver. The cost of the program is $3995 , and adoption fees range from $250 - $500. Thank you for supporting, considering, or even just giving this a glance. I’m very excited, and more than anything I’m hopeful for this opportunity.