Building our academy

Our mission is to make the healing power of dogs accessible to everyone. Our work has commenced with participants aged 18 – 30 living with disabilities, and will ultimately expand out to all marginalised community members who can’t access pet ownership themselves, but would benefit from the many physical, mental, and social wellbeing perks of spending time with dogs.

We have 3 programs to facilitate this:
1. Pat and Chat, where our participants spend time doing social activities in a doggy day care setting;
2. Animal advocate training: We provide training in safe animal handling and employments skills, then support our graduates into roles in the animal care sector;
3. Vet team training: We provide support through certificate IV in veterinary nursing (or studying veterinary medicine for the candidates interested in this) and support graduates in employment in veterinary environments.

The animal care sector has the lowest reported rate of disability inclusion, though one of the highest rates undisclosed or undiagnosed disability. There is also dramatically increased rates of mental illness in workers in this sector relative to others. By supporting our graduates into employment in this sector, we create safety, language, and tools to accomodate differing needs, ultimately benefiting everyone on the team.