In the small Florida town of Bradenton, a young Izzo never thought that her life would revolve around man’s best friend. “Really, I never thought that I would be doing this for a living. I wanted to be an accountant!” Deana said.
Her love for dogs stem from a mutt named Stacy Izzo had when she was 17. “That thing was hell on wheels. I had to start taking her to obedience school during a time when such a thing was laughed at. However, one of the trainers told be about crate training dogs and what a help that can be. After crate training [Stacy], there was a huge difference in her behavior. She was still hell on wheels, but a better version, at least,” Izzo said in all one breath.
She continues to go on about how much she enjoyed the training after several months of training Stacy at the obedience school one of the dog instructors asked her if she would have liked to be hired on as an assistant. “She told me I had a knack with dogs and that I should expand on that,” Izzo said.
Thirty years later, Izzo and her husband, Mark, own the Happy Tails boarding kennel and training center and Izzo now is the area coordinator all puppy walkers for the Guide Dog Foundation in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Mark Izzo chimed in: “This woman is unbelievably good with animals. Aside from our kennel we have three dogs of our own and several cats, all of which she bonds with on a close level.”
Izzo was weeks shy of taking her CPA exam when she saw her life’s calling. “I was inside the accounting firm I was clerking for at the time when I saw two guide dog puppies and their trainers walk by outside the window. Immediately I thought’ I want to do that,’” she said.
Instead of taking her CPA exam, Izzo applied to work for the Foundation. Starting off, she housed and trained adult dogs and some puppies.
Eventually, she worked her way up to a coordinator in Florida. “Later, the Foundation asked me if I wanted to be the main coordinator for them in Georgia. At this point I had been married to Mark for only a couple of years and we thought, ‘Why not?’ That was eight years ago,” Deana said.
Brittany Nolan is a puppy raiser for the Guide Dog Foundation and currently is working with her second dog.
“Deana is one of the most helpful people when it comes to questions about how to raise a puppy,” she explained. “If you have a question or you are concerned about you puppy and need advice, Deana will email you or call you within hours to see what’s going on [with your dog].”
As Izzo walks around the kennel to take the dogs out to the bathroom she continues to chatter happily about the life she has chosen. With a smile she said, “This is probably the least glamorous job. When I am not cleaning up after dogs or training them, I am holed up in the house answering emails and doing paperwork.”
She continued, “My days start very early and they usually don’t end until pretty late.”
With about 150 dogs under her supervision at the University of Georgia alone, Izzo still makes the time to get to know them all and their walkers’ names.
“It’s important to know who has what dog and how they are doing,” Izzo said. It’s up to her to make sure all of the puppies are being trained properly and not being treated as a pet, which is quite a responsibility.
However, Izzo is not all work and no play. During her free time, her favorite thing to do is shoot pool and relax with her husband.
“We don’t get out much, but when we do it’s nice to just go out and get a beer and not talk about the dogs,” Mark Izzo said.
Deana Izzo added, “That’s pretty hard to do, though.”
When asked about the future, Izzo said she can’t imagine doing anything else but working for the foundation and running her kennel.
“It’s become my life. I love it and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
No comments:
Post a Comment