SALT LAKE CITY — An Arizona woman is sharing her story in hopes of spreading awareness to others about researching reputable service dog programs after winning a contest, only to find out her prized dog was untrained.
Sydney Abel says she needed a service dog as she used to pass out 10 or more times a day. She recalled watching herself on the screen last year at the LOVELOUD festival in Salt Lake City and thinking it was a surreal moment.
“I was like, 'Oh, my gosh!,' this is an opportunity of a lifetime!” she said.
Abel had won a contest organized by Golden Healer Service Dogs and would get one of her own service dogs to help with various medical disabilities, including an autonomic nervous system disorder called POTS, which still causes her to pass out up to five times per day.
“When I found out on that stage that I was the winner, I have never sobbed so hard in my life," she shared. "It is hard to be given such a gift of a future of independence and knowing that like even though I will always be disabled, that it was like finally a step forward.”
About a month later, she received a Facebook message from a former employee.
“She informed me that both of his dog trainers had quit Golden Healer because of Mike Carlson's unethical practices within the business,” she said.
Carlson is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Healers.
Although she understood the accusations, Abel says she couldn’t give up the opportunity.
“This was a free service dog," remembered Abel. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I wasn't going to just give this up. So I was like, 'OK, gotta keep going forward.'”
This March, Carlson reached out to say Abel's service dog, Hero, was ready, so she came to Salt Lake on July 10 to pick him up.
“There's a video when [Hero] first walks through the door, he pushes through the door and like pulls on the leash. And at that point, I was like, this doesn't look like a service animal, but I was still trying to stay positive because this was such a big deal in my life,” she said.
Abel says red flag after red flag came, with Carlson telling her Hero doesn’t sit with verbal commands, eats his own poop, and has bolted out of the car towards the road before.
Loren Pardo, who trained dogs for years, reviewed Abel's videos of Hero.
“He was so stressed, he was afraid, he was avoiding everything," Pardo said. "He had no idea what he was doing. You can actually see it in the one video where the trainer puts the slip lead over the dog's head and he just, his eyes kind of close."
Pardo explained that means the dog is shutting down.
“You're literally watching the dog go, 'OK, there's nothing that I can do to prevent this. I don't want this and fighting it is going to make it worse,' and it was, it was heartbreaking, honestly.”
After what Abel says was a chaotic night of barking in the hotel room and nearly pulling her to the ground, she called Carlson to pick Hero up. She says her story has pushed her to raise awareness when it comes to researching behaviors of service dogs ahead of time, and to try to get one to help her live her best life.
“Right now I'm currently fundraising to try to raise money for an actual reputable service dog from a legitimate company," she said, "and finally get that independence that I've always yearned for and thought I was so close to getting it, for sure.”
FOX 13 News reached out to Carlson, but has yet to hear back.
