Denver to Host July 2ND Annual National Service Dog Conference to Educate Business and Public

    DENVER, CO, June 19, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Operaration Fetch will host the nation's second annual conference in Englewood, Colorado from July 22-24, 2016.

The Conference is for business leaders, hospitality and food service managers, first responders, service dog handlers and anyone interested in Service Dog Education and Awareness.

The conference will be held at the Englewood Civic Center, 1000 Englewood Parkway, Englewood, CO 80110

World class speakers and professionals in the service dog field will give participants a 360 degree view of problems and promises regarding service dogs.

Topics to be discussed:
--Emergency Response Procedures for people with service dogs and first respomders.
--Issues for businesses: Access, spotting fakes, ADA compliance
--New Legal issues and legislation facing handlers and businesses
--Fake Service Dogs: panels and presentations
--The Human Canine Bond and its healing power
--Types of professional canines
--Best practices for businesses
--Prison programs: promise and peril
--New Scientific Research
--Service Dog Training methods
--Veterans and Service Dogs
--Invisible Disabilities

With the increasing need for service dogs to mediate visible and invisible disabilities, especially for returning military personnel with PTSD and trauma injuries, June 5th has been declared Service Dog Education and Awareness Day. And with daily media reports highlighting access issues and conflicts regarding disabled persons in need of animal assistance the conference will provide attendees with the information and skills necessary to act as ambassadors in their own communities. The goal is to bring about conflict resolution and an increased appreciation for the role of service dogs in mediating physical and psychological disabilities.

Attendees will learn to educate and advocate in their own businesses, towns or agencies for ADA compliance and conflict free access for people with visible and invisible disabilities.

To date, there is an impressive list of proposed speakers who will lend their time and considerable talent at the event to include:

Dr. Laurel Braitman: Dr. Braitman is a science historian, writer, and a TED Fellow. She is also an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Laurel has a PhD in the history of science from MIT and has written for a variety of publications. She is the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves, which was published in June 2014 by Simon & Schuster.

Dr. Margaret Glenn: Dr. Glenn is the chair of the Department of Rehabilitation at the University of West Virginia. She also works closely with the prison training program at the federal facility in Morgantown West Virginia that trains canines for veterans with mobility and PTSD issues. She also works with agencies on access for service dogs in the workplace.

Briana Ore: Briana is the senior trainer for Freedom Service Dogs in Denver Colorado. She has worked for nearly a decade training assistance animals for people with physical and emotional difficulties.

Lon Hodge: Lon,"Veteran Traveler," who resides in Chicago and Colorado is a former military officer and professor of psychology that works closely with the Disaster Shelters Relief Foundation and Operation Fetch. He and Gander, the AKC national hero service dog of the year, travel the country giving free seminars on service dog awareness, PTSD and ADA regulations while doing Planned Acts of Community Kindness (PACKS) with their social media community of some 400,000 followers.They have worked with businesses, police and fire and organizations small and large to create a barrier and stress free environment for service dog handlers and especially veterans and victims of trauma. He is the curator of and one of the featured writer in In Dogs We Trust, and anthology of America's Best Dog Stories, 2104.

Tickets are available here for the general public:
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ecldlptm6872de59&llr=vwgto8oab

Tickets for Military ID holders, Service Dog Handlers and First responders:
http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=vwgto8oab&oeidk=a07ecsxeu1g8f0cfd01

Join National Service Dog Hero Gander, Speakers from the ADA, and national experts in the field for this important event.

The conference is supported by Vantage Hotels, The Meredith Birchfield Foundation, Operation Fetch, Starbucks Coffee and Team Oliver (UK, US).

Operation Fetch is a division of the Disaster Shelters Relief Foundation (DSRF) founded in 2006. DSRF has financed and built community centers and homes worldwide since its inception when it worked to assist survivors of the devastating earthquake in Sichuan, China that claimed thousands of lives.

Disaster Relief Shelter Foundation (DRSF) has expanded its mission. In addition to its registered focus and mission statement DRSF serves all survivors of disaster and trauma:

Disaster is defined as any extreme hardship be it physical, mental, economic, environmental or accidental.

Trauma is defined as extreme stress and/or threat to minimum quality of life brought on by socio-economic difficulties, psychological stress due to conditions like PTSD, weather related disasters, physical impairment related to accidents, criminal actions resulting in loss of property or mobility be they psychological or physical.

DSRF will expand shelter services to veterans and their families in the following ways:

Provide temporary and long term housing as deemed by DSRF to assist former servicemen and women and their families who do not immediately qualify for assistance from the Veterans Administration:

Homeless or impending homeless men and women veterans awaiting probable VA benefits
Homeless or impending homeless men and women and families who appear eligible for benefits and are rebuilding appeal cases with the VA. Tens of thousands of veterans who served prior to 1973 had records destroyed in a personnel center fire and need assistance while awaiting appeals adjudication.

DSRF will work to assist veterans and civilians with service dogs needed to mediate the stress of physical and emotional trauma suffered during wartime, peacetime, or as a result of disasters in their lives. There will be special focus on veterans as the VA currently does not provide or assist with service dogs for veterans with PTSD or other traumas not service related or not completely physical in nature. Veterans will receive first priority when DSRF allocates funds for service dogs.

DSRF will promote education and advocacy to schools, community organizations, government entities and businesses to help ensure unfettered access, in accordance with ADA regulations, for those in need of a service dog.

DSRF will grant small financial requests, through Operation Fetch, by dog handlers and service dog agencies in need of emergency funds to ensure handlers can reintegrate into society with a minimum of difficulty.

DSRF will assist us with our Planned Acts of Community Kindness as needed.

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