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Leader Dogs for the Blind empowers people who are blind or visually impaired with the tools for safe and independent daily travel. Our goal is to educate, advocate, and share real life experiences of those with blindness. Come learn, laugh, and grow with us.
Taking The Lead Podcast_042126_Dylan Nichols
Leslie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Taking the Lead podcast where we empower people to be unstoppable. I'm Leslie Hoskins with my co-host Alyssa Otis and Timothy Kyo. How are we doing today?
Alyssa: Well, I don't know about you, but I am full of excitement. We had a wild, wild week recently on campus, and I feel like campus has just been a buzz ever since.
Leslie: Yes. Um, we had the alumni board. Here recently, so it was a historic moment in the Leader dog history. It was the first time having our alumni board on campus for a like two day retreat. And the vibe was very much so adult camp.
Alyssa: It was absolutely adult camp. I'm constantly counting people, making sure nobody snuck away to go gosh knows where it, it was an absolute blast.
Timothy: Y'all had a bowling tournament one day.
Alyssa: We, I don't know how much of a tournament you wanna call it, but Yes, we had a great time bowling. Everybody went out. I think we had what, 11 [00:01:00] people? Mm-hmm. Nine dogs and pizza and drinks and I mean, it was. It was a competition.
Leslie: It was absolutely, uh, just so much fun getting these clients together to really connect in person.
They, we did have fun, of course, we went bowling and that was a great time had by everybody. Um, but all day on Thursday they had meetings amongst themselves with Leader dog team members, just. Building this alumni board and this leader dog community and all of the things that they have in the works and that they've already accomplished.
It was so, so wonderful to see this connection and get everybody together. Um, so for those of you on the alumni board, thank you so much for being a part of it. Everybody came, everybody participated. I cannot wait to see what comes of it. Um, and certainly look forward to. To future on campus retreats.
Alyssa: Yeah, I, the one thing we were told is it has to be longer.
I think they want like a two week retreat situation.
Leslie: Oh my gosh. It does need to [00:02:00] be, you know, one thing when planning it that I didn't consider as kind of like the alumni board liaison for the Leader Dog team is. How many other team members wanna interact with these clients in our alumni board?
Alyssa: Yeah. It was constant.
G dmi, were coming down, comms were coming down. Everyone's like, did you hear so and so's on campus? And it was like local celebrities. I think we even had somebody sign a copy of our update magazine.
Leslie: We did. Yes. Yes,
Alyssa: it was, it was a wild time, but it was such great conversation, came out of it. Such great thoughts for the future, what our future of our alumni support and our alumni board's gonna look like.
I, I am so excited for it.
Leslie: Timothy, what are your, your thoughts kind of on that from the client perspective of knowing that this board is, you know, happening and, and really starting to make an impact?
Timothy: Well, I'm, I'm grateful Leader Dog, have the, uh, let the clients be representative in what's going on, the leader dog.
And I can't wait to see what comes out of it too. And I'm sure it's gonna make everything for the better and, uh, I can't wait.
Leslie: Yes, [00:03:00] yes. Very exciting stuff. And as we've said before, Melissa Weiss says, our president and CEO and really pushing that the clients are at the center and they're the voice of, of everything that we're doing.
And this is one example of how we're doing that.
Alyssa: Yeah, absolutely. And, and the list of how incredible our clients are. And, and when we're sitting there trying to think of incredible clients, and we're, we're coming up with a list of 50, 60, 70, 80, you know, a hundred people. Um, it, it really truly is incredible how much our, our clients do, and.
So today I'm actually really excited 'cause I get to introduce you to another incredible client. Um, today's guest has been involved with Leader Dog since 2019 For Dylan. Coming to Leader Dog was the start of an exciting new chapter, bringing forth new opportunities, including some unique travel choices.
Leslie: Yes. Dylan grew up in a small town in eastern Kentucky where he was driven everywhere he needed to go seeking more independence. He attended the Leader Dog Orientation and Mobility program in December of 2019 and was matched with his leader dog Elwin in July of 2020. [00:04:00] This past year, they took an extended road trip with Dylan's wife, Mary Kate, to visit eight cities that they meticulously researched and determined might be a good fit for the accessible lifestyle they wanted.
Dylan, Mary, Kate, and Elwyn now live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Timothy: Dylan, it's great to have you on the podcast. Uh, can you tell us what brought you to Leader Dog back in 2019?
Dylan: Yeah, thanks for having me. So, like you mentioned before, I grew up in a small eastern Kentucky town and so I really didn't get. A taste of more independence than just having someone drive me around until I went to college and I went to Eastern Kentucky University, which was a small campus, very pedestrian friendly, and you can walk just about anywhere in 15 minutes.
And between the summer of my junior and senior year, a friend of mine and I went on a a road trip of our very own. Before we get into the crazy road trip we're gonna talk about in a minute, um, and we went to Washington DC and I have this very vivid memory [00:05:00] of, so my friend Ryan, he did all the driving.
And so when we got there, I was in charge of going out and getting some of our supplies. Uh, so I left the hotel and I went to this, the corner, and I stood there for quite a long time. Trying to figure out the safest time to go and, and DC traffic is crazy. Um, and so I never really felt comfortable. I had to turn around and go right back to the hotel.
And so that was a really low point for me. And about one year after that, I was at a conference and I met a, uh, leader dog's, uh, GDMI guide, dog mobility instructor, uh, John, who had a leader dog with him. Cleo and I talked to John about my experience and, and some of my fears and hopes for the future. And he.
Talked me into going for a walk with Cleo, and that was, that was magical. And then he talked me into applying and, and the rest is history.
Alyssa: I love that. And that's right there. Why we go to these conferences. There's people that just don't know about our services. So I'm [00:06:00] thrilled you were able to run into John.
I'm thrilled he had Cleo there. I know Cleo. What a, a lovely little girl. Um, but that's great that that was your first kind of introduction to Leader Dog, and then you decided o and m was where you wanted to start.
Dylan: Yes. Yeah, my o and m skills, I have had one or two years of o and m in high school, and, um, I felt like I could use, uh, a little bit of a.
I, refresher is probably the wrong word. Just, just more skills. Yeah. Felt, felt better. Uh, and so like I, like you said, I went in December of 2019 and that was my, that was my taste of like a normal leader dogs class.
Alyssa: Yeah. You were right there on the cusp before COVID, huh?
Dylan: Yeah, and I mean, it was, it was great.
I had a good time.
Timothy: So, Dylan, how much of an impact did it, when you came back for that refresher, did it do with your cane skills and everything? How did it, how did it affect your life?
Dylan: Oh, it was night and day. I, I don't know. It's just doing o and m with [00:07:00] your instructor, like day in, day out for like five days straight.
And, and you guys do a really good job of taking us to, to all kinds of different locations and situations. And so I felt prepared for just about anything. And I mean, of course I was doing a lot of the same old stuff I was doing before, but it just felt. Smoother and I felt more confident.
Leslie: That's fantastic to hear and exactly what we're hoping to hear at the end of those five days.
And I think a brush up or refresher, however you wanna call it, you left feeling more confident and that's fantastic to hear. Absolutely. And you did mention how, uh, that was your most normal leader dog experience. So can you tell us a little bit about how when you came back for your first leader dog, you were in the first class post COVID, what was that like?
Dylan: Yeah. So it was, it was different to say the least. Um, so shortly after I got back in December, I, I applied and my start date for the class was gonna be, I think it, I think, I don't remember the exact date. It was mid-March, mid to late [00:08:00] March, 2020. So that obviously didn't happen. Mm-hmm. And, um, uh, I got a call and basically, um, let's see.
Okay. Basically. You all were letting people come up who could be dropped off. And I was one of the people who were close enough. I lived in Kentucky and so it was, I wanna say like five hours. I was, I
Alyssa: was say it's still quite the drive. Yeah, yeah,
Dylan: yeah. So yet another road trip. My mom, sister, and grandma drove us up.
Uh, it was like a two day trip and dropped me off and. I wanna skip ahead a little bit. I think this was the first time, at least for Alyssa or Monica, Monica's my, was my trainer, um, that. When we left that you got to see someone get into a car
Alyssa: with their
Dylan: dog. Yeah,
Alyssa: it was wild. Normally at the end of class, maybe there's one person, Nick is driven, that lives locally, everybody else [00:09:00] flies.
But this class, I was lucky enough to be in Dylan's class, the first class after COVID, and it was wild. It was just car after car picking people up, and it wasn't a volunteer from Leader Dog taking 'em to the airport. It was somebody picking 'em up to take 'em home. So yeah, that was, uh, you definitely had an experience that I don't think.
Well, I can guarantee many others haven't had. I think we had, what, six, six people total in the class?
Dylan: Yep. That was what I was gonna say next. Yeah. There were six people total. And I, I mean, it was great. It, it felt like a special experience because there were six clients, uh, six dogs and a lot of trainers.
So we got a lot of one-on-one time with the trainers, which is why I got to know, uh, Alyssa and Monica so well, and, and Heidi and some of the other trainers and, um. Yeah, I mean, some of my favorite memories of being in that class are just, just getting to know everybody. There were two people there who, clients who were, I just graduated from college.
They were still in college, and so we spent a lot of time, [00:10:00] um, playing the accessible monopoly in the, in common room or, um. Just chit-chatting on the bus as, as, um, people, um, took turns going out to, to work in all the crazy places we went.
Alyssa: Yeah, it was nice. It was like, you actually get to be around people again.
I, yeah,
Dylan: yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. What
Alyssa: month was
Leslie: this? I, I'm trying to put together a timeline to interview. It was
Alyssa: July. Okay. July. So like
Leslie: desperate for human interaction at that point?
Alyssa: Yeah, by that point, I, I tell the story all the time that at the end of, or midway through class, we take client photos and one of those photos is a picture of a client dog team and then the instructor that's worked with that team standing right behind them normally.
Right behind them. But here we were trying to do six feet distance. Yes. So in the photo it looks like we are just stalking each individual. We still look back and laugh at these photos. Dylan, I have to tell you find that. Yeah. Um, not because of you, but because of the instructors. So
Leslie: just creepily in the back six feet.
Alyssa: Yeah.
Leslie: What a unique and wild [00:11:00] time. It's hard to even remember that that was real life, right? That some of those things that were happening during that year. Um, and I am really proud of Leader Dog. Right. We continued to, to serve clients in many different capacities and, and now you have a very unique story because of it.
And it sounds like that was just one of your many road trips that you've had throughout the years.
Dylan: Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot.
Alyssa: Yeah. Well, once, once you returned home, what, what kind of stuff did you do? I know I've run into you a few times when I visited Kentucky, so tell me a little bit more about that.
Dylan: Yeah, so I have had a couple of jobs. I lived in Lexington, Kentucky for five years and they were all disability services, but I worked at a Center for Independent Living for three years and I did a couple things there, supported employment. Um, I did independent living skills training. Uh, but the most recent one I worked for Bluegrass Council of the Blind, and I did a lot of one-on-one assistive technology trainings.
And as part of. [00:12:00] My job there, I, um, they would send out different employees to different events and one of the events, uh, where I run into, ran into Alyssa was, uh, cane Tuckey, which was like,
Alyssa: oh my
Dylan: gosh, it was white Cane day. Yeah.
Alyssa: Yeah. Yep. I look over and I go, oh my God, I know him. That's, and then I go, I think that's Dylan.
Like, it's been a few years, and I'm, what's his dog's name? What's his elwyn? So that was, that was always great. I love running into people out in the wild.
Dylan: Yeah. I walk into Kentucky and uh, Alyssa goes. Dylan, which is one of the few times that someone, um, greets me first instead of Elvin. And um,
Alyssa: I love that.
Timothy: I know what you're talking about, Dylan.
Dylan: Yeah, absolutely. But it was so cool to run into you and, and talk to you and I think I, uh, snuck you a cookie so you could give it to Elvin.
Alyssa: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. It's just a little under the table. Nobody needs to know. Although now everyone listening to the podcast knows.
Yeah. Now we
Leslie: all know what you guys are doing.
Dylan: It was just one.
Alyssa: Just one.
Leslie: [00:13:00] That's so wonderful to hear. Uh, Kentucky has a lot of things going on and a lot of great services, so that's wonderful to hear that you've been a part of that. So, moving right along in your journey, because we have a lot to discuss, you and your wife went on this extended road trip with Ellen.
Can you just tell us more about that?
Dylan: Absolutely. So the catalyst for this whole trip. Was, um, well my wife and I got married in June of just last year, and so the entire time we've known each other, we've talked about just wanting to move and just have that kind of adventure, uh, where you uproot your entire life.
Alyssa: Wild to me. But yeah, sounds great for some.
Dylan: Yeah, but we, we were really excited about the, the opportunity to do that. And so after, shortly after we got married, um, we were, we just looked at each other and we were like, I mean, why not now? Now seems like a good time. We just lump all of the, the crazy life events together and just go now.
And so we did a lot. We broke out the spreadsheets, did a lot [00:14:00] of research, and we were able to narrow it down to 10 cities, eight of which we actually went to. Um, it was, it was. Let's see. We spent about a week in each place on average, and we, we did a lot. Um, we can get into the research in a minute, but what we were looking for, but we really wanted to treat each place like, like we were living there already, uh, a little bit.
And so like, where are the places we would go? What are the place things that we would do?
Alyssa: Yeah, I mean, and I personally have been lucky enough to sit and, and have lunch with Dylan and talk about his research. But I know a lot of research went to deciding where you were even gonna start. I mean, I'm gonna throw a number out and say there's a bajillion cities in the United States that's accurate.
I feel like that's an accurate number, that's an accurate number. Um, how did you decide on these eight that you ended up going to? What were some of the things, I assume public transportation or, or jobs or, or what were you guys looking at?
Dylan: Yeah, so [00:15:00] when we broke out the spreadsheets, we were, we sat down and we were like, okay, what's important to both of us?
What's important to, even if it's just one of us? And so the thing that was important to me was freedom of movement. You know, access to public transportation, uh, great walkable neighborhoods. So I looked at the cities. With good frequency. So I didn't wanna spend a lot of time standing at the bus stop. Um, I looked at what types of public transportation they had.
Did they have trams, did they have buses, did they have micro transit? Just all of these different things and walk scores. Great website. You can look at the walk score, bike score, public transit score for individual neighborhoods and cities. And so for each place. And there were other things there, there, I mean, grocery stores.
I like to go to the climbing gym. Uh, we looked at all kinds of other things too, uh, just for our lifestyle. But public transportation was the big one. And I picked out, we picked out three, two or three different, lemme start [00:16:00] that over. Um, so we sat down and picked out two or three different neighborhoods in each city and.
You know, it had to have a good walk score, good public transportation connections. Um, but we needed to get some pause on the ground, so to speak. And, you know, what is a 86 walk score out of a hundred look like? What does it feel like? So we would go to specific neighborhoods that we picked out because we didn't have a lot of time and just walk around, go to, walk around some of the.
Apartments that might be options for when we move there. Go to the farmer's market, check out some coffee shops, check out some bookstores. Just what are the things that we're gonna be doing?
Alyssa: You guys did. So that sounds like a lot of work to just find a place that you want to live and then a lot of work once you decide to move somewhere.
But that, I mean, do you mind telling me what were the eight cities? Hmm,
Dylan: absolutely. So we stuck to the, to the. So we stuck to the Great Lakes region. Okay. Because [00:17:00] that's, we determined that, you know, the US big place, yeah, you can narrow it down a little bajillion bit.
Leslie: Cities bajillion.
Dylan: Absolutely. Yep. We needed to narrow it down a little bit and we both really are outdoorsy people.
Okay. And so we really like the nature of the Great Lakes. Um, when we got engaged, we actually got engaged at Pictured Rocks Beautiful. In the upper penins.
Timothy: Beautiful.
Dylan: Yeah. And so we were like, okay, let's, let's stick to this general area. And so we went, um, in order, we went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then we went to Madison, Wisconsin.
And then we went up to the upper peninsula to Marquette. And then we went back over to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. And then, uh, I'm counting those both as one city. Okay. Ugh. The Twin Cities. Um, and then we went back across the upper peninsula, camped a little bit and went down to Lansing. Spent about five days there up to Traverse City, down to.
Detroit, where of course we stopped at Rochester Hills and got lunch with [00:18:00] Monica and Melissa.
Leslie: Nice. Yeah.
Dylan: And we have to visit the gift shop, of course. Right. At Leader Dog's. And then finally we stopped at Pittsburgh. No. Yeah. Yeah, we stopped at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That was the last one.
Alyssa: Gosh, the amount of, I Timothy, I know you travel a lot for leader, but Yeah, but this, this is a lot of travel.
What kind of stuff from, I guess both of you guys, Dylan, for your road trip and then, and then Timothy also, just that you guys need to think about ahead of a trip with your dog.
Timothy: Well, it just shows you how adapted the dogs are in different scenarios. I mean, uh, I'm sure I was gonna ask Dylan, I mean, was he ever worried about how his dog reacted being a new place every four or five days?
And these dogs had adjust very easily and that's what's amazing about these dogs.
Alyssa: Yeah.
Dylan: Yeah, yeah. Well, I do have to tell you when, when I was. Okay. Uh, I do have to tell you, when I was, uh, stopping to get lunch with Monica Elman's trainer, we were bonding over the fact that Elvin as a guide dog [00:19:00] absolutely thrives on going to new places and doing new routes, and so.
I mean, I guess I was a little bit worried going into it that, that it would be a lot for him. But no, he absolutely gets energy from doing a brand new route. He loves, I mean, he does a great job doing his old routine. You know, we go to the same places all the time, but when we do a new route, he, you can just feel.
The excitement radiating off of him for like a new challenge.
Timothy: Yeah.
Dylan: And so, yeah, that was one of the, that was one of the highlights for me. Um, one of the other challenges, well of course you have to think a lot about space. So I decided, we both decided, um, at the beginning that we were gonna give Elwyn.
Most of the backseat, if not all of the backseat. And so, uh, I mean, of course we had to put all of our stuff back in the car by the time we were traveling between cities. So he had two seats instead of three, which he was not happy about. Um,
Alyssa: poor dogs.
Dylan: But most of the time he had the whole backseat. And it, it was challenging space wise, but we, but we did it.
Timothy: How long did, I've noticed sometimes when we, oh,
Leslie: go ahead Tim.
Timothy: When me [00:20:00] glacier. Travel sometimes she's showing off to everybody, look what I'm doing. You know, you can feel some something from the dog. I'm, I'm serious. And she knows that maybe if Cheryl's not with me on the travel, uh, look what I'm doing for my humans, what I call myself.
And she does a great job at doing it. And she shows off a lot.
Alyssa: Yeah, Ellen was always a very curious learner, very excited to learn. I remember that about him during training. So I'm not surprised at all that he, he got outta the car and was ready to zip and zoom around each new city.
Dylan: Yeah, I did learn, I did learn that he is a beach boy.
Um, we stopped, uh, obviously well like Marquette's right next to Lake Superior. Travis stays right next to Lake Michigan. And so we would go to these dog friendly beaches and of course we were getting into like November, and so sometimes we'd go to the beach and there'd be absolutely nobody there. And so.
I would let Elwin run on the beach and he absolutely loved it. He would zoom up and down. He would do laps around my wife and me who were, we would stand like 10 feet apart and he would just do laps for like the first three minutes.
Alyssa: Oh.
Dylan: Uh, [00:21:00] won't touch the water, but absolutely loves walking next to it.
Alyssa: He's a sand a sand guy. Not so much. Me
Leslie: and Elwin have a lot in common. DMZs. I'm not interested in the water. That's so
Dylan: good.
Leslie: That's,
Dylan: he definitely like got a lot, he got a lot of downtime 'cause it was a lot of, uh, mentally taxing working.
Leslie: Yeah. How long was this trip? Like what's a timeframe? Was it a couple weeks or?
Dylan: It was exactly two months.
Leslie: Two months. Yeah.
Dylan: Yep.
Leslie: That is wild. To be on the road, moving along around for two whole months. Mm-hmm. So then what were kind of those final three cities?
Dylan: Yeah, like the final three cities of the trip or the, like the top three in my mind.
Leslie: The top three in your mind. Like what were your top three choices?
Dylan: Oh yeah, absolutely. So, um, I'll start with three and work my way up. Yeah. Because I feel like one is obvious what I live in. Um, so number three I would have to say was, uh, Milwaukee. Milwaukee, uh, of course it's right next to Lake Michigan, which [00:22:00] was awesome. Um. It had some really good, um, had some really good buses.
Okay. Uh, it did have one straight car. It was only downtown. Uh, I, I, I love trains. Trains are the best public transportation. But the buses were great. They were, they were on time. They were frequent. I did a couple of, I mean most of the time my wife was with me. Mm-hmm. But sometimes I wanted to do like, what does it look like for Elvin Knight?
Just go somewhere by ourselves. Yeah. Um, of course. 'cause we're gonna be doing that a lot. And so I would get, I would just pick two random destinations. She would drop me off and then I would try to get to the other one. It was just so smooth. And, um, one or two of the neighborhoods, I think, uh, Shorewood is more of like a, like its own town, but, um, it's still within like the metro area.
And I just remember like the sidewalks, it's gonna sound silly, but the sidewalks are just so nice. Like it does
Alyssa: not sound silly at all. No, not in our world. We love a good smooth sidewalk.
Dylan: Like El and will stop for all of the, like all of the, [00:23:00] what do you call it? Like inclines. Mm-hmm. Like all of those. Um, but there were like none to stop for there.
It was so nice. Um, so that was, that was Milwaukee and then Pittsburgh was number two. Pittsburgh. I was really surprised. Um. Because, I mean, Pittsburgh is surrounded by the mountains. It's really dense because there's not a lot of, uh, a space to work with. Um, and so I felt like I could stand in anywhere in Pittsburgh and get just about anywhere else.
And if I couldn't walk there, I could, um, get a pretty decently timed bus. There was a good train, um, but really like. I said I picked out like a couple of neighborhoods per city, and, but there were some neighborhoods in my mind that were way better than some entire cities that we visited. And, uh, south Side Flats, shout out to South side flats, just south of, uh, of downtown Pittsburgh was one of those neighborhoods.
It was, it [00:24:00] was amazing. Um. The main thoroughfare did not feel hesitant at all to cross the main road. Um, lots of houses, lots of parks, um, really, really condensed. So you could get just about anywhere in like 15 minutes. Really loved that neighborhood. Uh, but it was definitely beat out by, uh, Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is where I live now.
Mm-hmm. Where I'm coming from, uh, coming to you from today. Um, so Minneapolis is, um. It's got two light rail train lines. Um, my apartment is actually within like a five minute walk of the train. Uh, it comes every 12 minutes. Um, you can get to downtown Minneapolis, downtown St. Paul, the Mall of America, the Amtrak station, the airport.
You can get to all of those places just from the train. Um, there are bus, rapid transit comes every 10 minutes, and then of course the, you've got like your standard buses, but they don't just go to, like in Lexington, all of the trains go, not trains, sorry. There's no trains in Lexington, Kentucky. [00:25:00] Um, all of the buses, bus routes go from downtown outward.
Mm-hmm. And then if you want to go from one route to another, you usually, there's like one or two connections, but you have to go downtown and then out, and it adds a lot of time. Sure. And here in Minneapolis there are. Multiple transfer points everywhere. And so like if you want to go like just directly west from, um, the south of Minneapolis to St.
Paul, like there's a bus for that. Like there's a bus to go just about anywhere. Um, and so I just feel like I don't really even have to plan my route. I just look at Google Street, uh, not Google Street View. I just look at Google Maps and it gives me like three different good options and I get to pick which one I want to do, and it's just an awesome feeling.
Alyssa: That's great.
Timothy: So Dylan 2018, you couldn't do this now? Yeah. 2026. You can do that with a dog. How that, that is just a great story.
Dylan: Absolutely, and it all, [00:26:00] like I, I give a lot of the credit to Elwin and just the confidence that he gives me to be able to, to just go out and. Like, I can go out and just get on public transportation.
I'm starting to learn it pretty well right now, so I feel like I can, even without looking at the map, just go and I, I don't feel like I have to plan as much. Yeah, of course I do. I'm a very meticulous person. I
was
Alyssa: gonna say, it's what I appreciate about you, Dylan. That's, I'm the same,
Dylan: um, but I just feel like I can.
Get up and go to a bakery if I want to, or, or to the library. I, I, I can grab Elwin and we can go and he's ready and excited to go.
Alyssa: I love everything about your entire story. I'm over here mouthing things to Leslie, telling how thrilled I am to hear this story and how, again, I've been super lucky. 'cause now I've gotten to hear your story at lunch and then hear now again.
Um, but. I have to make sure that we talk about this one instance that happened with you. I know you're a big train guy. You enjoy going out on the trains and you happen to have met somebody on a train.
Dylan: Absolutely. [00:27:00] I wanted to get to this too. Thank you for bringing it up.
Alyssa: I had to,
Dylan: um, so when we were in Minneapolis in October, just checking it out, uh, of course I wanted to check out the train.
My wife makes fun of me. Um, Mary Kate always gets a picture of me when I'm on the train because she's like, it's. She always says, it's just, you just look so happy. Thank
Alyssa: cute.
Dylan: But we went from our Airbnb to the Mall of America is, uh, at the end of one of these. And so we got to ride it for a pretty good amount of time.
See what was um, next to it. I just love listening to my wife Go, and there's a bakery and there's a hospital and there's this. And it's so great. But on the way back from the Mall of America, um, sitting across from us, uh, there's just this guy sitting across from us and he said, he just started talking to us and he said That was a really cute dog.
I actually trained Leader Dogs, um, when I was in prison a couple of years ago, and it was one of the best experiences of my life and I miss it so much. And you've just got a really good boy right there.
Alyssa: I believe in fate. I think that everything [00:28:00] happens for a reason and I think that we at Leader Dog will probably be hearing from him wanting to raise on the outside now.
Leslie: Absolutely. That's wonderful. And for him to be able to see a dog in action.
Alyssa: Yes.
Leslie: And doing, and all the efforts that he put in when he was raising a dog to see. See it benefiting somebody else. That's so wonderful.
Alyssa: Not only are you out there traveling, but you are being a representative of Leader Dog. You are.
I know you said that. Mm-hmm. You give Elwin a lot of the credit, but I'm sure Elwin gives you a lot of credit too. Mm-hmm. It is a hundred percent a team. So,
Dylan: yeah, absolutely.
Alyssa: Congrats on all of the incredible things that you have done. I feel like Timothy said it best from 20 18, 20 19 to now, it's only been six, seven years, and look at how much has changed, so I know.
It's incredible. My gosh. Well, thank you everybody so much for listening to this episode of Taking the Lead. I'm Alyssa Otis with my hosts Timothy Kno and Leslie Hoskins. We hope you enjoyed learning about Dylan's travels and more specifically the accessibility features being looked at in each [00:29:00] location.
Please join us next time as we continue to dive into the world of blindness.
Leslie: And if you'd like to learn more about applying to Leader Dog, you can head to leader dog.org or call us at (888) 777-5332. Don't forget you can reach us at taking the lead@leaderdog.org with any questions or ideas. If you like today's podcast, make sure to hit subscribe and check us out wherever Podcast Stream.