from Brianna's mom: I attended the July 07 HSP class with my 9 yr old diabetic daughter. We personally witnessed horrors from one of the HSP trainers picking up a small dog by the skin on it’s back and shaking it at waist level, dogs with pinch collars covered by bandanas, dogs that were extremely thin, dogs that were not potty trained, dogs that growled and lunged at people in public places, dogs that were terrified in public, discrimination of class members by HSP staff and lie after lie regarding the HSP program. There were a couple of dogs in the class that did seem to be doing well and we were one of the fortunate families to have been awarded one of those dogs. However - 8 days into the program we were dismissed and Michelle Rienkemeyer grabbed the dogs leash out of my 9 yr old daughters hand while she sobbed. I asked what grounds HSP had for removing us and Michelle said that we had been “disrespectful” (her code word for you asked questions)

Michelle also claimed that it was a “unanimous board decision to have us removed from the program”…. come to find out later that there were board members that never even knew we were removed, much less had voted for it! We were devestated… the written progress reports we had been given by the HSP trainer stated we had been performing all requested tasks with our dog in the “EXCELLENT” catagory, never at any time were we given anthing that stated otherwise. After my daughter and I went back to our hotel room and sobbed on the floor holding one another we received a nasty letter under or door from Michelle stating that we had to return all HSP items we had been given IMMEDIATELY or HSP would sue us. The list included many items that we had never actually been given. We were also ordered by Michelle that we had to leave the hotel in the morning. HSP kept all the money we raised as well as our dog (which they placed with another family the very next morning)

After returning home we did much more research into HSP and their business practices and were not surprised to learn that we weren’t the only family that had been treated like this. One family that was supposed to attend our July class had been dismissed the week before class even started, and HSP kept all the money they raised as well, until we both filed complaints with the AG office of MO. By the end of 2007 Michelle / HSP paid this family off so that just left our complaint standing on AG website. She continued to slander me personally as well as my family. There are now 13 complaints filed with the Missouri Attorney General's Office.