ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s hard to talk about the service dog community without talking about the veteran community. They often go hand in paw. There is a group of USF St. Pete students who are giving their time, energy and love to make sure our future service dogs are ready for our vets in need when the time comes.<\/p>\n
From the classroom to the library to the dorms, wherever the students go, the dogs come with them; it\u2019s all part of being in the USF St. Pete Puppy Love Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was looking at schools, I saw this was an opportunity and I was like having a dog on campus and in class, \u2018I\u2019m in,\u2019\u201d said Puppy Love Club President Irena Mesa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had dogs my entire life, so when I came here, I signed up, I got approved, and then I got my first service dog in training,\u201d said Grace Chiarenzelli.<\/p>\n
Puppy Love members, Irena and Grace, found out it takes a campus to raise a service dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very nice when you have an exam coming up, a big project you\u2019ve got to do, and it\u2019s just like hand off the dog and then you have a day to yourself,\u201d said Irena.<\/p>\n
These dogs will eventually be certified by the non-profit organization Dogs Inc., but they won\u2019t be ready until they’re 16 months old. So, it\u2019s important to get them off on the right track.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe does still have this puppy mentality but it\u2019s really satisfying to see her kind of come into her own, when we go into classrooms, she is very quick to settle,\u201d said Grace.<\/p>\n
The Puppy Love Club has even created trading cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the date of birth, where they were born, the raiser’s name, and then their specialty, so I think like one of them is drooling,\u201d said Irena.<\/p>\n
These students say the most challenging part of raising a service dog is having to give it up, but it\u2019s also the most rewarding.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, seeing people who get these dogs and how much it changes their life, it makes me understand why I do it,\u201d said Irena.<\/p>\n
One of those recent recipients of a service dog is Army Veteran Rachel Hughs. She was matched with Byner.<\/p>\n
\u201cByner has done what no psychiatrist or psychologist or anyone could do,\u201d said Hughs. \u201cByner has helped me to stay in the now, to be present, I say Byner is my dog, but actually I am Byner\u2019s person,\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel is so appreciative of the students at the Puppy Love Club she wanted to personally stop by campus to say thanks.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you say thank you enough to somebody that is actually doing something to save lives and that\u2019s exactly what they are doing, saving veterans lives,\u201d said Hughs.<\/p>\n
Grace hopes their story inspires other college campuses across the country to start their own Puppy Love Clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s honestly one of the most fulfilling things that I\u2019ve done on this campus, it\u2019s a great opportunity, I would say go for it,\u201d said Grace.<\/p>\n
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Florida beekeeper loses livelihood after neighbor has 20 beehives removed from his property<\/p>\n
An 84-year-old Citrus County beekeeper is fighting to recover 20 active beehives that were taken from his property months ago, leaving him without his main source of income and removing up to 2 million bees from the local ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Florida beekeeper loses livelihood after neighbor has 20 beehives removed from his property<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s hard to talk about the service dog community without talking about the veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[205,31725,22498,31726,31727,31729,18143,202,204,203,199,201,200,3670,31728,208],"class_list":["post-49738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-abc-action-news","tag-dogs-inc","tag-military-veterans","tag-puppy-love-club","tag-rachel-hughs","tag-raising","tag-robert-boyd","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-usf-st-pete","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}