COVID Heroes Award – Calgary

Advanced Training

This team of amazing humans helped keep the Calgary Advanced Training program running all year long. This team have gone above and beyond during these unprecedented times! They can often be found lovingly caring for our advanced dogs or coming into Calgary HQ and helping with training or fixing up the facility – it’s this fabulous team of people who have kept PADS Calgary able to keep on training and placing life-changing service dogs. Thank you for all you do!!

Jeffrey Winer

Evelyn James

Vicki Wiseman

Carmen Kinas

Karina Nickel

Gloria Bednar & Linda Elias

The Beaton Family

Stephanie & Corey Hornick

Chantel Bender

Mark Ottenbreit

Mike Ottenbreit is a quiet, self-effacing person who will step up no matter what you ask of him, and in this year of COVID restrictions, he has made himself extra available. He works in a diamond mine in the north, on a schedule of “three weeks out/three weeks in,” consequently cannot be a full-time Raiser, but whenever he is on his way back into Calgary, he texts our Advanced Trainer, Miranda, to ask if she has an Advanced Dog he can sit for his time “in.”

He will also sit Puppy Program dogs whenever asked, and often ends up taking his charges on hikes in the mountains, where he can indulge his passion for photography, creating many photos that he has sent to PADS for promotional material. He is also a skilled woodworker and has crafted coat rack, jump-on table/cubby, and box feeder for our Calgary Facility, as well as the Verne Trevoy Trophy base. Mike is a valuable volunteer and we love what he brings to PADS. Congratulations, Mike!

Lannie Anderson

Lannie Anderson has raised two pups for PADS, and at present is an active sitter in Calgary. In 2020, as PADS moved towards online delivery of training, education and communications for our staff, Volunteers, Clients and then the public, Lannie stepped up to help make our programming more accessible. Our weekly Tune-in Tuesday broadcast is now captioned to ensure that many of our wonderful clients and others that are deaf or Hard of hearing could enjoy this programming. Congratulations, Lannie!