Anna Schuster spent most of her childhood training pound puppies for 4-H competitions at the Howard County Fair.

However, after experiencing a life-altering health scare, causing her to use a wheelchair, she is now in need of a service dog.

The Columbia native, 26, began training puppies for competitions at eight years old. Rescuing the puppies from the Howard County Animal Control and Adoption Center, her parents enrolled her in the Happy Hounds 4-H Club, a program through the University of Maryland Extension that teaches young people how to care for and train their dogs for shows at the Howard County Fair.

Involved in 4-H for a decade, she participated in numerous competitions, including agility, obedience, rallying and showmanship, where she earned awards including Best in Show and Reserve Champion. Additionally, she took on leadership roles, including serving as president of the Happy Hounds 4-H Club for three years, where she won leadership awards and represented 4-H on a national and international level.Lori Yancey, who trained Schuster in the Happy Hounds 4-H Club, recalled her being “energetic” and “enthusiastic.”

“[Schuster] was a delightful young lady,” she said. “She was very friendly, bright and always looking on the bright side of things.”

Schuster credits her involvement in the program with instilling in her dedication and resilience, characteristics that have proven essential while navigating complex medical conditions over recent years.

In 2020, after graduating with her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, she took a gap year to work in a community health clinic that helped provide care to patients who were not insured and facing homelessness. While on the job, she experienced a complex and rare medical event that left her with dysautonomia, an autonomic nervous system malfunction leading to issues with regulating functions like blood pressure, digestion, kidney function and temperature control.

Following her medical event, she moved home to be cared for full-time by her parents for a year. During that time, she applied to medical school and was accepted into the West Virginia University School of Medicine.

Now in her third year of medical school, she faces many health challenges that affect her day-to-day life. Struggling to regulate her blood pressure, body temperature and heart rate, she has difficulty sitting up or standing for extended periods of time and faints multiple times a day.

In January 2024, she began using the assistance of a wheelchair.

“Pretty much simple tasks like unloading a dishwasher can feel like an intense cardio workout for me,” she said. “As you might imagine, balancing medical school with all of that has been quite a challenge, but I’ve been very grateful to have support.”

She experienced an incident at WVU where she fell and hit her head on the concrete hospital floor after a fainting episode that resulted in a concussion.

Sue Schuster realized at that moment that her daughter needed additional support.

“When Anna fell at work this last time, I got a call and you only think the worst as a mom,” she said. “Knowing that there’s somebody that’s just focused on her and looking at her needs, which would be this service dog, would be pretty amazing.”

Schuster said a service dog would be trained to help her with everyday tasks like changing positions quickly to pick up an item she may have dropped, but also with serious health conditions like sudden heart rate and blood pressure drops that could lead to fainting.

Service dogs are individually trained to perform specific tasks directly related to a disability, whether mental or physical, according to Service Dog Training School International. Training a service dog involves three key aspects — basic obedience, public access manners and specific task training.

Organizations that provide trained service dogs can charge between $20,000-$30,000, according to SDTSI. Organizations spend around two years raising the dogs, guiding them through their puppy phase, teaching them basic obedience, socializing them and training them for specific service tasks. The high costs are related to equipment, food and veterinary care.

Schuster said it would be a relief to receive a service dog.

“While I’m grateful to have a lot of family and friends for support, they can’t always be by my side 24/7,” she said. “The service dog would be able to be with me all the time to offer that extra layer of protection and assurance, especially if I go about becoming a doctor, which has been a lifelong goal of mine.”

Schuster said the community can support her efforts to receive a service dog by donating to her GoFundMe, which has raised more than $13,000 toward its goal of $15,000.

To donate, visit gofund.me/7ac845c9.

Have a news tip? Contact Allana Haynes at ahaynes@baltsun.com or 240-756-5668.