Paws Program

Paws for Purple Hearts is the first program of its kind to offer therapeutic intervention for veterans and active-duty military. It’s about establishing trust and connection with warriors facing challenges and who better to do that than specially trained service dogs helping on the road to recovery.

Just as playful as they want to be, 1-year old Reagan and 4 month old Andi are service dogs in training. The two are learning commands and skills to eventually be paired up with and placed with a Veteran or active duty service member facing challenges.

“Whether that is standing with them during an anxiety attack or post traumatic stress issue or whether it’s helping them pick something up or with mobility or even turning off a light switch or turning it on,” said Instructor, Melissa Kitko.

Kitko, a Veteran herself said it’s not always easy to ask for help.

“We warriors want to be the helper, not ask for help, so the third option is get their battle buddy to do it for them,” she said.

“We’ve seen what this can do to change somebody’s life,” added Program Instructor, Debbie Zastrow Yanagida.

The service dogs train for 2 years and can start as young as 2 weeks old. They learn mobility tasks. Things like walking along side a wheelchair or tugging to open a door. They’re also trained to recognize signs of post traumatic stress. Kitko demonstrated how Reagan is able to recognize something like an anxiety attack. Kitko tapped her leg repeatedly to signal experiencing an anxiety attack. Soon after, Reagan nudged her leg to help calm her down. Kitko also laid on her back demonstrating the command lay on, which is where the service dog will lay on top of its handler and the weight of the dog provides a comforting effect to a warrior experiencing PTSD.

“They will lay here for as long as we ask,” said Kitko.

Training and placing the service dogs is a bond both instructors say is priceless and a connection that is ever lasting.

“When we make a match of a dog and a person, they, it’s just beautiful,” said Kitko.

“To just see how that can absolutely change somebody’s life is all worth it absolutely amazing,” added Yanagida.

Paws for Purple Hearts has placed 117 dogs and directly improved the lives of more than 8,400 warriors. The organization is also in need of volunteers.

K9 Officer Loki

The borough’s top canine cop has received a grant.

The money comes from Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. a nationwide charity located in East Taunton, MA, whose mission is to provide bullet and stab protective vests and other assistance to dogs of law enforcement and related agencies throughout the United States.

The organization presents their “Healthcare for K9 Heroes” medical insurance program for 2020 which covers annual policy premiums. Since 2016, the charity has donated over $125,000 towards medical reimbursement programs for self-funded K9 units.

Loki was chosen as a 2020 recipient of the “Healthcare for K9 Heroes” grant. Those departments that receive the award use them to support the financial burden of raising funds to support their K9 unit, who have no more than three K9s, and who have previously been awarded a vest through Vested Interest in K9s, Inc.

Law enforcement dogs ages 2 through 7 are eligible. The annual medical reimbursement insurance policy, administered by Trupanion, will cover illnesses, injuries – including those sustained in the line of duty – diagnostic testing and therapies.

The plan allows the freedom to use any licensed veterinarian, specialty center, or emergency hospital in the United States.

Trupanion offers injury and illnesses coverage for working and service dogs – both on and off duty.

In addition to the healthcare reimbursement program, Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. has provided over 3,917 law enforcement dogs with U.S. made, custom-fitted, NIJ certified bullet and stab-protective vests in 50 states, at a value of over $6.9 million dollars.

Service Dog Needed

Cole Reavis is like any young adult. He loves the Georgia Bulldogs and is one of their biggest fans. He also enjoys being around people and brings joy to anyone who meets him.

But Reavis, 28, has more challenges than the rest of us face. He was born with cerebral palsy and suffers from grand mal seizures. When a seizure strikes, it can be traumatic and even life-threatening. He used to have a service dog who would alert his caregivers of a seizure, but the dog passed away from old age and is truly missed.

A new companion that can serve Reavis’ needs costs close to $20,000. Although a GoFundMe page has raised more than $1,400, the family needed more funds to buy and train a service dog.

That’s when the Red Knights Chapter 13 came in. The Red Knights are a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who are also firefighters, either paid or volunteer. Reavis’ parents are members of Chapter 24 and of Ellis Cross Fire Department.

The members of Chapter 13 were touched by Reavis’ story and wanted to help his family raise the necessary funds for a service dog, said Jason Mullins, chapter president.

And so, Saturday’s poker run for Cole was organized. Although the group is based in Statesville, the Poker Run included participants that not only spanned across county lines but also state lines. Some participants came from as far away as the northeast to help raise funds.

“We had motorcycle riders from South Carolina, New Jersey, Winston-Salem, Lenoir, Sherrills Ford and several motorcycle clubs present too,” Mullins said.

One of the other motorcycle clubs was the Red Knights Chapter 24. After the Poker Run, they sponsored a raffle for a Henry Golden Boy 22 Caliber Rifle. All of the proceeds went to Reavis’ family.

With their engines roaring and pistons thrusting, approximately 70 bikers made their way from Northside Drive.

“We made our way from Northside Drive, and then the riders went to D&D American Performance in Mooresville, and then to Blue Collar Cycle Company in Salisbury, South Main Customs in Kannapolis and ended at Shepherds Volunteer Fire Department,” Mullins said.

They also were able to cool down with Hawaiian shaved ice.

The poker run was a major success, Mullins said.

Between the bike run and raffle, approximately $7,100 was raised. Those funds will be instrumental in helping his family buy a new service dog.

Mullins said the dog was already secured from Hickory and Reavis went there Friday night to meet his future service dog.

“He thought he was going to look at dogs but he was going to meet and see which dog bonded with him,” Mullins said.

With the dog secured, the poker run and raffle will help with the costs of training the dog to alert to Reavis’ seizures.

“Training the dog can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000,” Mullins said. So that’s why he stepped in to help organize the ride in conjunction with Chapter 24 members.

And thanks to those who spent their Saturday taking part in the ride, Reavis is much closer to getting the companion he needs.

“We got close to our goal to help Cole get his service dog,” Mullins said.

Life-Saving Service Dog

A Kentucky elementary school surprised a 7-year-old student and her mom by including a portrait of the student’s service dog, Ariel, beside her young owner in the kindergarten yearbook.

St. Patrick Catholic School in Louisville, Kentucky, student Hadley Jo Lange suffers from epilepsy, a neurological disorder that causes seizures. Hadley Jo’s service dog, Ariel, a 4-year-old Labradoodle, is trained to recognize when she is having an episode so that she can be attended to quickly.

Hadley Jo’s mother, Heather Lange swears that Ariel has saved her daughter’s life. She praised the pup for providing a “huge sense of security,” CNN reports. “I don’t know how I could ever thank Ariel as a mother,” Heather said. “She goes with her everywhere, to school, rides the bus with her, goes to her dance classes and soccer practice. She always has her eyes on my little girl.” Hadley Jo’s mother thought it was “neat” to see hers and Ariel’s photos side by side in the yearbook on May 15. Heather took to Facebook to share that she felt “beyond blessed,” adding, “It means the world to see your child have a home and ‘a family’ at her school that love her like we do.”

St. Patrick Catholic School’s principal, Nathan Sturtzel told CNN that it was an easy decision to find a place for Ariel in the yearbook. “It’s important for us to do all we can to foster our relationship with families and do what we can to support students,” he said. “[I]t was a lot of fun to include her. We loved it.”

Hadley Jo had her first seizure as a 17-month-old toddler while dining at a McAlister’s Deli with her family. “She was on my lap while I was eating,” Heather recalled, “and out of nowhere my baby fell into my arms and her eyes rolled back into her head and she was jerking … [I]t was terrifying.” “She stopped breathing,” Heather continued, “and there I was, a mother who thought she was about to lose her child.” Hadley Jo has dealt with seizures ever since.

The Langes decided to invest in a service dog after a eureka moment at Hadley Jo’s babysitter’s house. A big German shepherd belonging to the sitter’s son began behaving strangely, trying to pull Hadley Jo onto the floor; Heather believes the dog detected the onset of a seizure, reports The Record.

“That was a turning point,” she said.

If a seizure occurs at school, it is Ariel’s job to alert Hadley Jo’s teacher by barking. The dog then lies down beneath the 7-year-old in order to prevent her from falling and injuring herself.

Heather told CBS News that most of Hadley Jo’s seizures occur in the classroom because fine motor skills, critical thinking, and math trigger her epilepsy. As such, a teaching assistant at St. Patrick Catholic School has undergone formal training to become one of Ariel’s handlers.

According to Heather, Ariel is the only known service dog in the family’s district of Louisville, owing to the fact that service dogs can cost anything between $20,000 and $60,000; the Lange family acquired their life-changing Labradoodle thanks to a six-month community fundraising drive.

Heather, who is a vocal advocate for children with epilepsy, wants to help others secure the service dogs they need after watching her daughter thrive with Ariel. She launched a nonprofit, “Hope for Hadley Jo,”  in partnership with the Epilepsy Foundation of Kentuckiana, which continues to raise vital funds for families with similar needs.

The mom praised St. Patrick Catholic School for making her venture more visible, calling the inclusion of her daughter’s service dog in the yearbook on both the kindergarten page and faculty page a “big deal.”

“I really want the message to be out there that it’s okay that not everybody looks the same way, not everybody learns the same way, and other schools can do this too,” Heather told the Louisville Courier-Journal. “The compassion is there.”

Hero Police Dog

A hero police dog is retiring from the long-arm-of-the-PAW following a seven-year crime-busting career with the Counter Terrorist cops.

Rico the nine-year-old Dutch Shepherd became a legend on the force for helping to bring down some of Poland’s most dangerous crooks, including drug dealers, murderers and organised crime mobsters.

As part of the Independent Anti-terrorism Police (SPKP) responsible for high-risk arrests, search warrant execution services and hostage rescue operations among other things, the ulti-MUTT crime buster became known for his characteristic attire of goggles, bullet-proof vest and special dog shoes. 

Announcing his retirement on Instagram, the police said: “We don’t have to introduce this ‘gentleman’ to you.

“Rico – the most experienced service dog in the Polish Police who took part in the arrests of the most dangerous criminals.

“In the SPKP team in Warsaw he was treated as a family member and best friend. His service is now over.”

Police spokeswoman Anna Kędzierzawska said: “Policemen know that they can count on him in the most dangerous situations. 

“It is Rico who often goes with high-risk police officers. It is difficult to count how many times he went with them – 300-400 times, maybe more?

“He is a unique member of the Warsaw anti-terrorist team.

Rico’s handler added: “He always wanted to be a step ahead of us, as though he wanted to defend us.

“He is one-of-a-kind and frequently made it easier for us to make decisions as we knew we could always count on him, should we come into contact with the suspect.” 

“Looking back on the years they spent together, we could not have imagined a better ending.”

Veterans Moving Forward

As a way to commemorate Memorial Day at the end of the school year, Mercer Middle School teacher Gina Chaszar gave her students the opportunity to write an essay appreciating those who serve in the U.S. military — and the four-legged friends who offer them physical and emotional assistance when they return home.

“My kids would write essays putting themselves in the place of either service dogs and whatever inspired them, or a wounded veteran in need of a service dog,” Chaszar, who teaches sixth- and seventh-graders in Mercer’s Spectrum program for gifted and talented students, told the Times-Mirror.

Chaszar found a willing partner for the contest in Gordon Sumner, the president and CEO of Veterans Moving Forward, a Dulles-based nonprofit that trains and assigns service and emotional-support dogs to American veterans.

“It’s for any veteran who’s dealing with physical or mental challenges, or both,” Sumner said. “And it doesn’t have to be a combat veteran. You could be a veteran that fell off a ladder and is handicapped and needs a service dog.”

After a decades-long history of military service, Sumner — a recipient of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal and other esteemed decorations — retired from the U.S. Army in 1997 as a colonel select. He was one of the first volunteers at VMF, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary on July 7.

In the spring of 2016, VMF moved into its current facility in an office park at 44225 Mercure Circle in Dulles. The facility welcomed two special guests Wednesday: Charlotte Long, 12, and Ovya Sundaram, 13, who took first and third place in the essay contest, respectively.

Each girl wrote her essay from the perspective of a wounded veteran who is initially reluctant to accept the support of a service dog but eventually comes to appreciate his or her new companion.

“My story was titled ‘Brave,’” Sundaram said. “[The main character is] getting the dog, and they’re embarrassed because they’re pretty strong, and they don’t want to keep the dog at first, but the dog helps save their life.”

Long, whose first-place essay, “Butter,” earned her a $75 prize, drew from her experience of having to use a wheelchair after she broke her leg in the third grade.

“The character does not like to ask for help very much, and I don’t like to ask for help either, so I kind of know what that felt like,” said Long, who also loves writing fiction outside the classroom and said she is roughly 500 pages into a novel.

“[The essays] are far beyond what you would expect of a 12- or 13-year-old writing level,” Chaszar said.

During their visit, Long, Sundaram and their parents enjoyed petting and playing with several of the dogs in training. According to Sumner, most VMF dogs are named after veterans killed in combat, like Ashley, a chocolate Lab whose namesake, First Lt. Ashley White, died in combat in Afghanistan nine years ago.

VMF staffers are thorough when choosing veteran-dog partnerships, performing home visits and making sure applicants will be able to adequately care for their new helpers. Eventually, a HIPAA-certified board decides who each dog’s new owner will be.

“We get very nosy,” Sumner said. “We want to know everything about you, we want to know your finances, we want to know your home. It’s not going to be any good to give you a dog and you can’t support it.”

In its decade of operation, VMF has provided service and emotional-support dogs to veterans living all around the country, including California, New England and the Midwest. Gil, a two-year-old black Lab, will be placed in New Hampshire in a couple months and will be the first dog to graduate from VMF this year.

Though VMF usually bolsters its operations through frequent fundraisers, the COVID-19 health crisis has forced staff to cancel around 30 fundraising events that had been scheduled through this month.

“The only fundraising we’ve gotten is people who have been making contributions,” Sumner said. “I can’t not feed these dogs. I can’t not house them. These are like kids, so I’ve got to have money to keep the lights on and keep them trained and fed and housed.”

Thankfully, VMF plans to hold its first major fundraiser since the outbreak, a golf tournament at 1757 Golf Club in Dulles, on July 23.

“It’s kind of like TopGolf. There are little bays that they have, so you can come in, pay a $50 donation, then there’ll be food, drinks, prizes,” Sumner said.

Aside from merely keeping the current VMF facility buzzing, Sumner said he hopes to eventually begin a major capital campaign in order to purchase land in western Loudoun, which he believes will be a more appropriate environment for the canines in training.

“This is a business park,” he said of the current premises. “We have no place to run the dogs, we can’t build the obstacle courses that they need, so my dream is to have a capital campaign so we can move the service dog training facility to a more remote location, build it up on acres of land, where they can train and they can also be a dog.”

Newest Team Member

When Mac is old enough he will accompany trainees on their runs and help keep them motivated. Meet Mac, he’s the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s newest member – and he also happens to be a very good boy!

Mac was a gift to the Frank Bland Regional Training Center by academy classes 218 and 219.

When Mac is old enough he will accompany trainees on their runs and help keep them motivated.

Mac is named after Detective Jeremiah MacKay who died in the line of duty in 2013.

National Dog Award

A Maine service dog is up for a prestigious national award for the work she has done with her owner.

Amy Sherwood, of Naples, said her 4-year-old black lab, Dolly Pawton, is a trustworthy service dog.

“She’s telling me that there’s a medical issue that I need to address, that I need to take medication or I need to transfer over and lie down,” Sherwood said.

Sherwood’s medical issues include mobility and heart issues, as well as emotional complications caused by years of domestic abuse.

Sherwood has taught Dolly to recognize them and help ease them.

“I don’t know what I would do without her. I mean, she’s been in the ambulance with me. She’s been to the hospital. She goes everywhere with me. She’s definitely alleviated a lot of my stress and keeps a good eye on me,” Sherwood said.

Because of her hard work, Dolly is a semifinalist for the Hallmark Channel’s Hero Dogs Award. Sherwood nominated Dolly in hopes of shining a light on the role service dogs play in people’s lives.

“I wanted the world to be able to know what she can do and what other service dogs can do,” Sherwood said.

While Dolly has mastered many skills, it is her companionship and the comfort she provides that Sherwood said is most meaningful.

“She allows me to trust people. With her by my side, I’m able to let people in a little bit more,” Sherwood said.

Canines For PTSD Sufferers

In the service dog world, Odin, a 5-year-old Siberian Husky, is an outlier.

Perceptive, intelligent, social and the foundation of Above the Clouds Siberian Service Dogs, Odin is trained to quash the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We had no idea he was going to be a good service dog,” said Barrett T. Leary-Stensgaard who, with her husband, Tim Stensgaard, breeds and trains the dogs in Woodland Park. “Our trainers were just flabbergasted because Siberians have a bad reputation.”

Most service dogs, she added, are Labradors, German shepherds or Golden retrievers. “We got passionate about Siberians when we found that Odin has superior genetics – his line goes back 400 years to Siberia,” she said. “They are working dogs.”

The couple opened the business with Siberian rescue dogs but changed focus when results were disappointing. “We decided to start breeding, to take control of the genetics and the temperament,” she said.

Yet Odin is the star Siberian for Stensgaard, a U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret, who served in six combat tours of duty. Only recently did he acknowledge his PTSD. “I just ignored it as a possibility,” he said. “Even now I’m reluctant to talk about my PTSD — most vets are; it takes a lot to come to grips with that.”

When Stensgaard starts feeling anxious, Odin goes to work. “He’ll start getting on me, distracting me,” Stensgaard said. “He reacts to anxiety before I pick it up.”

Dogs that graduate from Above the Clouds Siberian Service Dogs help those with PTSD, mobility/stability issues, blindness, seizures or autism, for instance. “We have different training methods for different issues,” Leary-Stensgaard.

For people with mobility issues in addition to those with special needs such as autism, the couple relies on Cindy Pixler of Grand Junction, a home health-care nurse.

Each dog is certified as a Canine Good Citizen by Lisa Lima, a dog trainer and animal-assisted therapist and owner of My Life Unleashed in Woodland Park, or her business partner Eric Rice. “I can’t certify my own dogs,” Leary-Stensgaard said.

Once purchased and trained, the Siberians head out to destinations around the nation. For instance, at a year old, Raven is trained and ready to be picked up by the new owner, Nahkee Augusta, who is driving in from Wisconsin to pick up the dog.

“The research is that dogs bond better when they go home in a year,” she said. “I’m pretty good at matching the right dog with the right person.”

Service Dog Independence

Some children are afraid of the dark, but darkness in complete silence is especially frightening. Just ask Annie. When she was a child, Annie would often sleep on the floor just to feel the vibrations of footsteps, or the opening and closing of windows and doors. Annie would wake up sore from the hard floor, but it made her feel safe.

Annie received her first set of hearing aids at 18 months old. “I received a diagnosis of Usher Syndrome from my eye doctor. This means I was born with a severe to profound hearing loss, and I am gradually losing my peripheral vision,” explained Annie. Still Annie dreamed of going to college and living on her own. Although excited when Annie was accepted to the University of West Florida, her mother was concerned for Annie’s safety. To be honest, Annie was a little scared too. “I was ready to be on my own, and I didn’t want to depend on my parents anymore,” said Annie. “But I had hope that I could live an independent life.”

Since then, Annie has had three Hearing Dogs from PAWS. Her first was Kip, a Terrier mix that was rescued from a shelter in Chicago. Her second was a black Lab named Bubbles who served her beautifully for almost 15 years. Her current dog is Pilot, a black Golden/Lab mix.

Annie shared, “Pilot alerts me to the doorbell, door knock, cell phone, alarm clock, microwave timer, oven timer, carbon monoxide detector, fire alarms, an intruder, and when someone calls my name. This is important because if someone is behind me and needs to get my attention, I rarely hear them.” Pilot alerts her to these sounds at home and in public by nudging Annie with his nose. She asks him, “What?” orally or in sign language, and he brings her to the sound. With an intruder and fire alarm, he has learned to take her to the nearest exit. Pilot also knows his basic commands in sign language.

“When Pilot and I are out in public, I often hear that my Service Dog is better behaved than some children,” said Annie. “I have been in situations in which people were completely unaware that Pilot was under the table until I get up to leave with him. They are amazed at how quiet and well-behaved he is when he’s with me.”

But Pilot does so much more. “Not only has Pilot helped alert me to sounds, he has helped me deal with many of life’s struggles,” explained Annie. “Pilot came when I really needed him.” He was there to support Annie after the deaths of her mother and Bubbles. “Pilot was in mourning with me,” said Annie.

Today, Annie teaches Special Education at Blue Angels Elementary. When she first brought Pilot to work, they were thrilled by how appropriate his name was for the school. They created a special welcome sign for him, featured him on the school news, and printed his image on their Science Olympiad team shirt.

What’s so amazing is that Pilot is bringing joy and comfort to so many more people than just Annie. One of Annie’s students with epilepsy had a seizure in class. After it concluded the student asked for Pilot who rarely leaves Annie’s side. But Pilot went right to her and rested his head on the student’s lap while she recovered from her experience. Annie has a long-standing relationship with PAWS and is so grateful for the Hearing Dogs she has had to help her navigate through life. Her dream of independence was certainly achieved many years ago when she longed to go away to school. Now she has the privilege of teaching young people who have dreams of their own; and, while doing so, she has Pilot by her side.

Dog Rescued Veteran

Jason Manley contacted some local service dog organizations to get a dog but was told the waiting list was up to two years. Feeling he couldn’t wait that long, Manley and his wife, Jessica, decided to try to find one on their own.

One Saturday morning in May 2016, retired Army Staff Sgt. Jason Manley and his wife visited an animal shelter to look at dogs, but he had no idea they would bring home one that would forever change his life.

Manley, 37, of Columbus’ Far South Side, had served five combat tours from 2003 until 2009 in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, he was diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrors he had witnessed during those years.

Though Manley eventually received treatment and found a job at a golf course as a maintenance crew member, he continued to struggle with PTSD, so in 2016 he looked into the possibility of getting a service dog.

Manley contacted some local service dog organizations but was told the waiting list was up to two years. Feeling he couldn’t wait that long, Manley and his wife, Jessica, decided to find one on their own.

Thinking back to that moment when he first met Abraham Lincoln, Manley can remember many details and it still gives him chills.

“As soon as they bring him into the room, he runs up and immediately gets in my lap … he’s sitting on my lap, and my wife’s in there, the other volunteer is in there, but he was only interested in me,” Manley said of the meeting at the Franklin County Dog Shelter. “And you know, it was at that point I knew that he was mine.”

Manley adopted the year-old boxer, which he later named after his favorite president. After bringing Abraham home and starting to train him, Manley said he began feeling some relief from his anxiety, depression and fear of new places and people.

“These dogs don’t just change your life. On any given day … these dogs can save your life,” Manley said. “If I didn’t have Abraham, I don’t know how far I would have gone to find relief from the torture that PTSD can be.”

While attending Columbus State Community College for a degree in landscaping, Manley was looking to start a program there to help other veterans train their own service dogs like he had done. He met with the college president, who introduced him to Heather Lane, a local veterinarian who was starting her own program.

Veteran Companion Animal Services helps pair veterans in central Ohio with rescue dogs from local animal shelters and assists them in the first year of the adoption process. Since 2015, the nonprofit program has paired seven to 10 veterans with dogs from shelters each spring and fall.

Manley became board president of VCAS in November 2019. Throughout the years, Manley has visited schools and fundraisers to help VCAS grow and taken Abraham with him whenever he could.

“When Jason and Abe would go and speak with other veterans or other groups of people, (they) could tangibly see, ‘Wow, like that’s what this dog does for him,’” Lane said. “You know, if you’re speaking to a group of veterans, the dog just kind of puts them at ease and relaxes them.”

“We talked a lot just about the impact that Abraham has had over the years. And his story is so special, we wanted to be able to share that,” Lane said.

The “I’m With Abe Club” started in June to increase the number of veterans paired with dogs. Members of the club donate a minimum of $10 each month towards VCAS programs.

Donations go to help defray such expenses as adoption fees and training and dog supplies. So far the club has raised just over $4,000 and is projected to reach $23,000 by the end of the year, Lane said.

The Nick Rozanski Memorial Foundation has donated $10,000 to VCAS and has partnered with the “I’m with Abe Club.”

The foundation was formed in 2012 and is named for Capt. Nick Rozanski, a 1994 Dublin High School graduate who died serving in the Ohio National Guard in Afghanistan. Since its inception, the Dublin-based foundation has provided scholarships to students at Dublin’s three high schools and grants to groups that help veterans, said Jenny Rozanski, Nick’s widow and co-founder and president of the foundation.

“The support animal organizations have come up pretty much every year when we’ve talked about giving money to someone, we just hadn’t landed on one that we were interested in working with,” said Jenny Rozanski. “And so when this came it kind of was a no-brainer that we would partner with them.”

Through the extra money gathered by the “I’m With Abe Club,” Manley hopes to help the veterans — much like him — who cannot wait for a service dog through other programs or who do not qualify for one.

“We don’t require any diagnosis, we don’t require anything from their doctors,” Manley said. “We don’t require any kind of discharge. You know, we don’t care how you got out, we only care that you (raised) your hand and you served your country.”