From Clarksville, Tennessee to Surprise, Arizona and even further, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Legend Acres owner Kristi May is leaving her mark on the community. With common sense, gentle, on-demand and in-person canine and equine training, veteran-owned Legend Acres is revolutionizing the relationship between animals and their human caretakers.

May sheds the old-fashioned norms of animal training in favor of “trust-centered training” that May says strengthens the human-animal connection, leads to dogs choosing to obey commands instead of mindlessly completing tasks, and addresses behavioral problems at the root rather than just the reactive symptoms.

“I call it canine cognition,” May said. “[With this training] you can see the dog is engaged, slowed down and thinking.”

This is something May said she didn’t see in her experiences working with – and training animals – under other training or evaluation systems, and is a common complaint she heard later in her entrepreneurial journey from her clients before they brought their dog to May for further training.

“Dogs could pass the [training] tests but behavior problems were still there,” May said. “Dogs were going through the motions of obedience without any connection to their handler.”

May decided to change that. Her frustration with the shortcomings of such training, and care for animals, pushed her to form her current business, Legend Acres.

May has always been passionate about animals and said she could always see “behavioral things” in animals.

“It was always just there,” May said. “I wanted to spend time with animals and see them thrive.”

Her career as a businessowner wasn’t an immediate start out of high school though. After a two-year scholarship at Central Michigan University ran out, May joined the United States Army to go to veterinary school and join the United States Army Veterinary Corp.

A shoulder injury and resulting shoulder surgery obstructed May’s plans to join the Vet Corp, but she didn’t let that setback derail her pursuit of higher education and dream of helping animals. May served eight years active duty in the Army and gathered veterinary clinic experience, earned bachelor and master degrees, and opened Legend Acres along the way.

Her dogged pursuit of improvement in animals’ experiences going to the vet and relationship with their humans, and her talent at identifying problems in those processes, eventually paid dividends for May.

The veterinary clinic May worked at in Tennessee while she built Legend Acres from the ground up, trusted her to implement her ideas when she came to them with ideas to make animals more comfortable when they visit the vet. May had listened to community members when they shared their struggles with getting their dogs to the vet and the often negative associations the animal formed upon arrival, so she came up with a solution. After-hour fun nights.

“We need to do better,” May remembers saying to herself. “Going to the vet shouldn’t be scary for a dog.”

Her “fun nights” and trainings with the vet, contracted through Legend Acres, took off within the community, and eventually May got feedback that dogs actually wanted to go to the vet clinic! May’s bond with – and reputation within – the community only grew as she left the clinic to run Legend Acres fulltime in 2015.

“As a business, you have to serve the community you’re a part of,” May said. And she did.

At Legend Acres, May offered deployment boarding for military servicemembers. She also used the Legend Acres resources to take in animals surrendered through the Sherriff’s department. When a person was detained and could no longer care for their animals, the Legend Acres team would come in to take care of the animals and give them a home. They also ran a food bank for animals. From hay to cat litter, May and her team at Legend Acres, met the needs of animals in the community through an application process.

She found that it created a beautiful, mutually beneficial cycle. Those helped by the food bank ran by Legend Acres, would often return and donate money or resources to help others when they could.

When May brought her family and business to Arizona, the need identified in the community changed, but Legend Acre’s impact did not. While Arizona had animal food banks and crisis organizations, May saw an unanswered, and immense need for service dogs.

May found that veterans, and others in need of service dogs, were met with limited options through larger national organizations. Those in search of a support animal could fork over sometimes upward of $25,000 for an already trained service dog or could go through the years long process of training a puppy into a service dog.

Even if the person in need could afford a pre-trained service animal, the waitlist alone for such assistance is so long that May said people lost hope.

“It’s an immediate need,” May explained. “Most people need a service dog NOW.”

May’s answer to yet another community’s need was Legend’s Heroes. Named after May’s late-Golden Retriever, Legend’s Heroes brings accessible and affordable service dog training to Arizona’s underprivileged communities.

Legend’s Heroes’ on-demand courses and reasonable prices mean that people can get started developing a service dog right away and reap the benefits of that support gradually, but immediately.

“Even if you have a service dog in training, you have a service dog that’s working,” May explained.

Her clients of Legend’s Heroes range from individuals in the military community, to women with trauma, to people with dogs who have behavioral issues. The feedback has been wonderful so far, May shared. With a large military population, May said she has seen a large demand for her services in Arizona and has many touching stories of lives changed through the people and animals she has worked with.

The on-demand training offered by Legend’s Heroes means May’s business is changing lives in all corners of the state, and even beyond the Arizona border, where a dog and it’s owner completed Legend’s Heroes’ Fundamentals course in Buenos Aires, Argentina! While tests have to be done live, classes can be taken remotely, opening the doors of accessibility even to those who may not have the ability to travel to Surprise, Arizona.

Whether a dog needs basic obedience training, behavioral modification, or full service dog training, Kristi May and the Legend Acres team and Legend’s Heroes program have a solution that is both affordable, accessible, and grounded in educated, empathetic methods.

Learn more about Legend Acres and Legend’s Heroes at Legend Acres Dog and Horse Solutions | Dog Training | Online Dog Training | Pet Supplies | Horse Lessons (legend-acres.com)