Kate Speer is a mental health advocate, writer, and the teammate of her two service dogs, Doctor Waffle and Tugboat. Together, an enthusiastic team of three, they fight to de-stigmatize serious mental illness and normalize the messy magic of healing out loud in the great outdoors.
Although you wouldn’t know it now as Kate works professionally as a public health marketing strategist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, ten years ago, after surviving a suicide attempt, her doctors told her she would only survive in a locked psychiatric ward. Thanks to Waffle and now Tugboat, she has proven her doctors spectacularly wrong and built a meaningful and independent life that no one ever thought was possible for her. With this unexpected gift of a chance to actually pursue an independent life, she lives each day unabashedly and full of gratitude, acutely aware of how special each adventure-filled day of freedom in Vermont truly is. When she is not advocating for a better healthcare system or outside with her two service dogs and husband, Dave, she can be found writing her substack — healing out loud — where she shares her adventures in recovery firsthand each week.
Follow their adventure on SUBSTACK
“ Freedom — freedom to adventure, explore and grow into a life defined by intention instead of limitation. ”
-Kate