Pictured Above: Service dog in training, Azul, will soon return to Southeastern Guide Dogs for evaluation.
Courtesy of Leila-Aolani DeClouet-Grant
By Edyn Gottlieb
While some people were baking banana bread and watching Tiger King, Leila-Aolani DeClouet-Grant spent the last 12 months raising a service dog in her dorm room.
DeClouet-Grant is a junior biology major with a concentration in biomedical sciences.
She fell in love with the St. Petersburg campus in high school when she accompanied her sister on a college tour.
“It seemed really happy and brightly spirited,” DeClouet-Grant said. “The small class sizes were also a bonus; it was the first college I applied to.”
DeClouet-Grant is in the honors program and is an aspiring pediatric orthopedic surgeon.
“I don’t care if there aren’t a lot of females in the field, I want to be one of them,” DeClouet-Grant said.
Since arriving at USF, DeClouet-Grant has found her place, not only in the biology department, but in her extracurriculars as well.
DeClouet-Grant joined the Puppy Raisers Club at orientation and currently serves as the clubs vice president.
“The club focuses on (service dog) awareness in the community,” DeClouet-Grant said. “After being in the club I have a greater appreciation for service dogs, the people who raise them, and the people who need them.”
DeClouet-Grant’s enthusiasm for service animal education persisted and in an effort to become more involved in the process, she joined the Puppy Love Residential Community Program (RCP).
Puppy Love is a volunteer program that partners students with puppies to train to become future service dogs. The program is run in partnership with Southeastern Guide Dogs who provide the dogs to students for training.
Dogs in the program stay with the student for a year and during that time they learn basic obedience, house manners and socialization.
After one year, the dogs are brought back to Southeastern Guide Dogs to enter a six-month intensive training program and become a certified service dog before being matched with an owner.
DeClouet-Grant joined the program and was soon matched with a six-week old golden retriever lab-mix named Azul.
Over the past year, DeClouet-Grant has taught Azul basic commands and he has accompanied her to classes. Azul will soon return to Southeastern Guide Dogs for evaluation and further training.
“I do plan to raise (a service dog) again,” DeClouet-Grant said. “We need a lot of puppy raisers. There is a shortage of puppy raisers and an abundance of dogs.”
