WEBVTT

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My name is Amber Steehbock,

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and this is the story of what happened

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when I tried to get a service dog

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through Arizona Goldens LLC, located in Phoenix Arizona.

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I have quadripelegic spastic cerebral palsy and use a power wheelchair.

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Because of this, many daily tasks are difficult for me,

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such as turning off and on light switches,

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hitting elevator buttons, and opening doors.

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And a service dog seemed the obvious solution to these problems.

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I heard about Arizona Goldens and was really excited

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because getting a service dog had been a lifelong dream for me.

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I contacted them, we met,

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and they decided that they could provide a dog that would meet my needs.

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All I needed to do was raise a little over $20,323

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and pass what they called "service dog boot camp".

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On August 10, 2010, I signed a contract with them.

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They then set up a donation page, a bank account and a paypal account

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where people could donate to my service dog fund.

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These were their accounts, and I never personally had any access to them.

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They said that this was set up this way so that it wouldn't, donations would not interrupt my SSI.

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Friends and family were wonderful and donated.

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And because of that, I raised a little over $20,000, or $21,990 in less than 5 months.

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Arizona Goldens were expecting me to take over a year to raise this money.

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It was not until after they had all the money that all the major warning signs started.

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After they had all the money, they finally provided me with a booklet containing all of the rules.

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Only then did I learn that I had to pass a multitude of tests

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with a score of 80% or higher,

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and that if I scored less on any of these tests

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boot camp would stop for me,

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they would fail me and they would keep all the money that I had raised toward a service dog.

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The booklet also stated that before bootcamp was to start,

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they would conduct individual personality and needs testing,

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and based on the results of these,

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would spend several months tweaking the dogs to my individual needs.

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This never happened.

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They never even asked me specific questions about my disability.

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All I did was walk around the mall with a dog a couple of times.

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After 4 more months of me repeatedly asking them when I could start my bootcamp

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they finally scheduled it for May 9th, 2011.

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They would not give me any study materials until 14 days before the start of bootcamp.

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They said that this was to be fair to all of the other clients,

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but my bootcamp study material did not arrive until 10 days before my bootcamp.

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They did not even provide it in electronic format.

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It came in a book format,

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even though they were aware that book format is harder for me to utilize.

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As scheduled, I started what was supposed to be a 21 day bootcamp.

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To their shock, I passed the written test, the written entrance test

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with the highest score of anyone they have ever seen.

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I studied the material and I knew it well.

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When it came to working with actual dogs,

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they brought a bunch for me to try out in the beginning,

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and narrowed it down to 2 potential dogs within several days.

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This is when the problems became very apparent.

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They were supposed to train the dogs for my specific needs,

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and it quickly became obvious that they did not.

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They insisted that they trained the dogs for someone with Cerebral Palsy,

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but CP is very different between individual people,

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and you can't just do generic training.

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With my particular CP,

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every movement I make intentionally

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starts with an unintentional movement,

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and sometimes ends with an unintentional one.

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The dogs had been trained to regard any tug, jerk or sudden stop as a reprimand,

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like telling the dogs "bad dog!".

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So, even though the dogs were doing everything right,

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I jerked often, and they thought they were doing wrong and became confused and shut down.

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The other problem is that the people who raised and trained the dogs

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were my teachers, and they were in the room with us at all times.

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Therefore, the dogs got confused as to who they were supposed to listen to, their trainers or me.

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Other service dog programs that I know of don't allow the trainers to be teachers.

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They also don't even allow the clients to interact with the dogs for the 1st week of training.

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Except to allow major downtime for the client to get to know their potential dog.

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This downtime was never allowed for me,

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and I never got to bond with any particular dog.

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Any time I pointed out the problems with the training,

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they would reprimand me by telling me to get over my disability,

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"grow a pair", and stop blaming my disability.

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I wasn't blaming, I wasn't making excuses,

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I was pointing out my disability needs,

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which is why I was seeking a service dog in the first place.

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Because of their improper training, I fell very behind on what their expectations were.

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On the 5th day they gave me my 1st actual test scores, as with the dogs,

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but they were dogs they selected.

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I failed.

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These tests included things that I physically can't even do,

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and of the ones that I can do, the dogs refused to respond to anything I said

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because they didn't know who to listen to, me or the trainers.

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And they also shut down because of what they thought were reprimands.

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The result was that it was a total disaster and I failed the tests.

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They allowed me to retake the test, the next day after reviewing the videos,

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and they urged me to practice.

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What was I supposed to practice with?

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I don't have a dog at home.

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And they also coached me more about "growing a pair" of balls and "getting over" my disability.

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The next day when I came, they announced that I would need to score

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double the amount that I had scored last time

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because they decided that I was responsible for more of the dog commands on the list.

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Even though I did much better on this test,

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I failed because they raised the bar too high.

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At this point they informed me that I had failed boot camp,

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they were not placing a service dog with me,

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and they would be keeping all of the money that I raised.

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Before I left the classroom,

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they asked me to record an apology video to all of my donors

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for wasting their time and money and failing them.

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I did not fail anyone.

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Arizona Goldens failed me.

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If you would like to know more about this,

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please go to the address below

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http://www.dogdreamteam.com/

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Thank you very much.

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http://www.dogdreamteam.com/