OUR STORY

Bayside began as a dream for founder, Ashlie, when she was 18 years old. She has always had a love for animals and training. Since the age of 4, she wanted to become a marine animal trainer. Her entire life she wanted to train dolphins and whales with a degree in Marine Biology. In her senior year of high school, her goals and aspirations slightly changed to working with humans. She was accepted into UNCW’s Marine Biology program prior to her career path change. However, while attending UNCW she became involved with a service dog training program and found her true calling - working with service dogs. Before handling service dogs, she actually worked with private clients helping to train their personal pets. She had been involved with pet-sitting and basic obedience training since the age of 10. She came full circle and had found her true passion to help people and change their lives by partnering them with highly trained service dogs. The perfect mixture of helping humans and training amazing dogs. She graduated from UNCW in 2020 with a degree in Recreation Therapy. She has since earned her certification as a Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA), her CGC Evaluator certification, and is still a certified and licensed Recreational Therapist (CTRS/LRT). She hopes to incorporate her recreation therapy modalities into Bayside to further improve the quality of life of every Bayside Client.

Bayside was founded in 2023 and hopes to become an elite service dog organization leading the industry with specialized approaches to training service dogs and clients. Bayside’s mission is to enrich lives through partnerships with individuals and specially trained service dogs. Every dog that comes through the program will have a Purposeful Placement whether or not they make it through our extensive training process. To read more about our programs and who we serve, click below.