How do you turn a career as a pro wrestler into a career as an animal rights attorney?
Sit back. This isn’t your typical UToledo law student story.
CELEBRATING SUCCESS: UToledo recognizes the Class of 2022 with a series of stories featuring students receiving their degrees at fall commencement.
Dominque Ditmore, who graduates this month from The University of Toledo College of Law at 23 years old, has always been ahead of her time.
The Pinckney, Michigan, resident graduated from high school at 13 and started a career as a pro wrestler at 15. She performed in nearly 100 matches before she turned 18.
While traveling the country as a wrestler, she also attended Michigan State University as an animal science major.
Ditmore grew up surrounded by animals. Her menagerie included dogs, cats, a horse, goats, rats, guinea pigs, hermit crabs, a lizard and a tarantula. She said she always planned to be a veterinarian.
While studying abroad in Greece on an international business experience in 2018, Ditmore decided to change her major to pre-law. Her ultimate goal: to be an animal rights attorney.
“Animal law was a way to help animals that would be more impactful,” she said, “instead of focusing on one animal at a time.”
She wanted to stay close to home for law school, and when Toledo Law offered her almost a full ride, it cemented her choice.
Ditmore isn’t stopping at a law degree, though. While writing a paper on poultry law, Ditmore realized she needed to know more about the scientific part of animal law so that she could write better briefs and litigate more effectively.
She decided to pursue an associate’s degree in veterinarian technology and is expected to graduate in 2024 from Penn Foster College.
She said she hopes the vet tech degree also will make her more qualified to do service trips abroad to help animals, allowing her to combine her love of travel and animals.
Animal rights have always been on Ditmore’s radar. When she was little, she was curious about how meat ended up on her plate and would ask her mom, “But it didn’t hurt, right?” As she got older, she did her own research about slaughterhouses and factory farming. She became a vegan.
While at MSU, she signed up to be an active responder for the ASPCA. She’s been deployed in the last two years to sites mainly in Ohio and Kentucky. After tornadoes devastated Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 2021, she traveled there to help rescue animals. She adopted her dog, Bolt, after being deployed to a cruelty case in eastern Ohio in May 2021.
“He instantly became attached to me,” Ditmore said. “I wanted him, but because my boyfriend is allergic to dogs, I didn’t get him. I thought about him until July, and when I deployed again, he was still at the shelter. He saw me and instantly started to whine and jump around in his kennel, and I was sold. “
Dominque Ditmore graduates this month from The University of Toledo College of Law at 23 years old.
Because Bolt needed socialization, he came to almost every one of Ditmore’s civil rights litigation classes with Rebecca Zietlow, Toledo Law professor and associate dean of academic affairs.
The class involved a lot of role playing, something at which Ditmore excelled, Zietlow said.
“She’s very dynamic and charismatic and good at expressing herself,” Zietlow said. “She’s a very effective advocate.”
In fact, Ditmore advocated for the creation of a student chapter of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and became its founding president.
“I’m glad that law students can now see that animal law is an option,” she said.
Ditmore also was instrumental in the creation of a new Toledo Law class on animal rights.
“She asked for that and advocated for that,” Zietlow said. “She even helped us find someone to teach the class, one of the founders of the field of animal rights law.”
Ditmore took the inaugural class this semester.
Ditmore wasn’t always so outgoing. Shy as a child, she credits her 3 ½-year career as a pro wrestler for helping her emerge from her shell.
It also taught her professional skills that helped her in law school.
“I gained public speaking skills, comfortability in front of crowds and being able to improvise,” she said. “It gave me a lot more confidence. I had to speak in front of people all the time and adopt a persona.”
She used those skills while participating in Toledo Law’s mock trial team for two years. She won the Order of Barristers’ Oral Advocacy Award this year.
Ditmore said she was once told to take her wrestling experience off her resume. But she refused.
“I haven’t had one interview where employers haven’t asked me about it,” she said.
How does one become a teen phenom in the world of pro wrestling?
Ditmore grew up surrounded by animals, including dogs, cats, a horse, goats, rats, guinea pigs, hermit crabs, a lizard and a tarantula. Her ultimate goal is to be an animal rights attorney.
It all began with a reality show – Total Divas. The show gave viewers an inside look into the lives of women WWE wrestlers. Ditmore said she was intrigued by the combination of acting and athleticism.
The almost-15-year-old took the money she had saved from her jewelry business, got a money order and signed up for pro wrestling training at the House of Truth Pro Wrestling School in Centerline, Michigan.
Now all she had to do was convince her mom and grandma to drive her three hours round trip for three months so that she could train four hours a day four days a week.
“I have ADHD and if I’m not busy 24/7, I get bored and depressed,” Ditmore says. “My mom was used to me. She home-schooled me and was really good about managing that with me.”
After training, Ditmore traveled the country every weekend, participating in events on pay-per-view and cable TV. Her ring name was Dominique Fabiano, aka The Dark Angel. She was called a prodigy and “fast became a top ring performer in one of the quickest time frames the wrestling world has ever seen,” according to a 2016 EWrestling News story.
Unfortunately, injuries derailed her career. At one event, she lost her balance while attempting a flip and jumped too early, throwing off the whole trick. She landed headfirst on a concrete floor.
She said she thought she was fine and went on to participate in a dozen matches the next day.
“I don’t remember any of them,” she said.
She went back to MSU and still thought she was OK — until exams rolled around and she couldn’t walk down a hallway with fluorescent lights.
She was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. Added to the effects of previous wrestling injuries — a broken neck that damaged her spine and a muscle tear in her shoulder — it was the end of her wrestling career.
She still feels side effects of the brain injury today. Last spring, just before exams, she hit her head. She experienced dizziness and memory problems and had to study in a dark office strung with white lights. She took her finals with 50 floaters in her eyes.
Ditmore is no stranger to adversity. From managing her ADHD and various wrestling injuries to finishing law school, she found a way.
Since animal law can be hard to break into, she said, she plans to go into criminal defense law initially while practicing animal law pro bono. Ultimately, she would like to secure a position in animal law litigation, focusing on farm animal and poultry law and ensuring more humane slaughtering.
