Back in 2008, I became partners with my first PADS Accredited Facility Dog (AFD), Rowan, a beautiful Golden Retriever. As a Registered Nurse, Rowan and I worked together with clients of all ages through my private practice nursing company, INSPIRE Animal Assisted Therapy. We worked with people with various disabilities and challenges to help them regain, develop, or maintain activities of daily living, help promote fine and gross motor skills, work on memory and cognition, and engage and stimulate social interactions. Rowan was a ROCKSTAR!

They say expecting parents go through a “nesting process” before baby arrives. Well, no human babies here but before I brought my sweet little Puppy-in-Training Arrow home in September 2015, I nested for what would become the most heartful endeavour I’d ever embarked upon in my 30 years of life so far.

Barley gave me freedom. To go for a walk by myself, to go shopping, to travel, to continue working when part of my job was going from building to building across campus. I was never alone because I had Barley with me. No longer did people stare at me because I was in a wheelchair. They stared at Barley and his amazing ability to pull. No longer the lady in the wheelchair going slow, I was the lady with the dog everyone loved and he brought a smile to their faces.