Hannah And Her Dog “Blue”

Hannah Vidrine lives on the North side with parents Chad and Tiffany.

Hannah is not your typical teen with her head buried in her iPhone.

Hannah is home schooled and she loves it.

Hannah, only 16 years old rescued  a hound mix she calls “Blue“ when he was on deaths door at 8 months old when his new foster parents brought him home.  The dog was abused, very skinny and scared.

They couldn‘t keep him and and Hannah came to the rescue.  Hannah‘s new friend was completely untrained snd very scared when she first adopted him.

Now 16 months old Hannah has trained Blue to jump through hoops, over logs, learn to wear his boots, goggles and to not be scared.  You can catch them at the lake playing  and training.

Through positive reinforcement training Hannah has been teaching Blue for only a few months.

Hannah went primarily online to learn training techniques and with the assistance of “Dog Whisperer“ and professional trainer Neil Copeland owner of Seven Lakes Kennels he introduced Hannah to new techniques including a prong collar for training Blue.

Blue was very fearful of cars to the point of dragging Hannah up a driveway.  Neil also taught Hannah how to train fearful dogs.

Hannah‘s short term goal is to train Blue as a Psychiatric Service Dog for herself as Hannah has autism.

Hannah said “the reason she loves dogs so much it‘s much harder to learn and lots of people with autism have special interests and dogs are definitely her special interest.“

Hannah hopes to one day in the future to have a kennel and train dogs.

“Kids with autism may especially benefit from interacting with dogs, which can provide unconditional, nonjudgmental love and companionship,” says Dr. Gretchen Carlisle a University Of Indiana professor.

Through Hannah, Blue has gotten a second chance to enjoy a very special life that he deserved. 

Hannah can be very proud of what she has accomplished training Blue.