Success Story: Korey the Kanine

Success Stories

Samantha Stocking is a local small business owner, innovator, and dog lover. She has a passion for training dogs and helping people. Sam created her small business for owners struggling with Type 1 Diabetes to provide a helpful solution for managing and preventing low blood sugar scares. She has a passion for training dogs and helping people.

Samantha Stocking credits much of her success to having patience and tenacity. Sam shares, “The best advice is to be patient! Things have slowly but surely started to fall into place. I never thought that this would have been possible a few years back, so being patient and being able to stick to and follow through with my dream was the best advice I have been given.”

At the age of 4, Sam was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. T1D is an autoimmune disorder where your body attacks your insulin producing organ, the pancreas. You need insulin in order to process glucose and manage the levels of sugar in your blood. T1D is a very challenging disease to manage, even with all of the technology and advancements of today. After having the disease for 25 years, Sam has developed hypo-unawareness, where she can no longer feel when blood sugar drops too low. This can lead to seizures or a diabetic coma, so after a few close calls where she was unable to catch her blood sugar dropping, she and her husband decided a DAD (Diabetic Alert Dog) would be a great addition to the family! Enter, Korey!

Sam welcomed Korey, a Diabetic Alert Dog (DAD) into her life when he was two months old. Sam began working with a service dog trainer in Germany, where she lived at the time, doing the vast majority of the training at home on her own. While working with her DAD, Korey, Sam discovered how essential Korey’s skills were for her family. She decided to get her dog trainer certification and start her own dog training business. Sam has always had dogs, and it seemed like the perfect decision for her: “I want to help others living with T1D to train their own dogs as DADs, as well as work with a variety of other clients, helping them and their dogs become the best teams they can be.”

This small business, based in Normal, Illinois has changed the lives of many, both in the area and internationally, for the better. Sam used SBDC as a resource in helping grow her platforms on social media and expand her website.