AUBURN — Christy Gardner, a trainer of service and therapy dogs, is to speak at Auburn Public Library, 49 Spring St., from 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 11.

She and the dogs and handlers with which she works, will be in the library’s Androscoggin Community Room.

Gardner has been training dogs for nine years but wanted to grow that dream to help more Mainers in need. She founded Mission Working Dogs in July 2020 as a local nonprofit to do just that.

The organization trains service dogs and therapy dogs for the local community and has cleared land to build a new training center this fall.

Gardner is a 39-year-old retired Army veteran from Lewiston. She was injured overseas in 2006 and spent nearly five years rehabbing before she was finally able to live on her own again. She was able to start participating in adaptive sports because of her service dog, Moxie. She’s now an assistant captain of the U.S. Women’s Para Ice Hockey Team as well as an alternate for Tokyo 2020 in shot put and discus. She also represented the U.S. at the Para Surfing World Championships in 2020.

This program will be in person and is family friendly. For planning purposes, registration is required. To register, visit the events calendar at auburnpubliclibrary.org; contact the reference desk at 207-333-6640, ext. 4; or email [email protected].

This program is part of the library’s Adult Summer Reading Program, “Tales with Tails,” during which the library has been reading, learning, and talking about summer, nature and animals — both wild and domestic. The next, and final, program in its summer series is to feature wildlife rehabilitation with Auburn’s own Misfits Rehab. For more information about this and other upcoming programs, contact the library or visit its website.