Save both Veterans and Rescued Dogs today!

OFP rescues dogs from shelters to matched them with veterans and others who need medical-alert service animals. We then teach these pairs together to become highly trained teams, at no charge to clients, Our cost averages $20,000 per team. Since 2010 we have accepted 462 applicants, and continue to receive requests every week from adults and children whose doctors have prescribed service dogs to help with various medical conditions.

The two questions we’re asked most often are, 1) “How do you choose the dogs to rescue for the program?” and 2) “How do you decide which dog gets matched with which client?” The answer to both is that it’s complicated, and to a very great extent down to OFP Founder Mary Cortani’s 45 years of military and civilian experience training working dogs and their handlers. Service dogs must want to interact with humans, and must be willing to overcome their innate tendency to interact with other dogs. Service dogs must actually ignore other dogs and focus on their handlers. Any dog that lives with other dogs is more likely to bond with them than with the humans in the household, even if the dogs don’t seem to get along with each other all the time. If the humans in the home have excellent leadership skills and the dogs are very obedient, the dogs’ primary allegiance is probably still to each other. Of course there are always exceptions, but this is one reason it can be very difficult to transition one animal in a multi-dog household into a service role.

Equally challenging is adding another dog to this multi-dog household, expecting it to bond with and work for the human to become a service animal that ignores other dogs. As for matching dog to client, we call that “Mary’s alchemy”. Staff members are always thrilled when we correctly guess the dog Mary chooses for a new client, AND can tell her the reasons for selecting that dog for that person. A combination of tasks the client needs the dog to do, personalities and energy of both human and dog need to be evaluated for the match to be successful. In most cases, the dogs are more flexible than the clients. As OFP's Founder and Executive Director Mary Cortani says, “You don’t get the dog you want; you get the dog you need.”

OFP rescues dogs to be matched with veterans and others who need medical-alert service animals. We then teach these pairs together to become highly trained teams, at no charge to clients, Our cost averages $20,000 per team. Since 2010 we have accepted 455 applicants, and continue to receive requests every week from adults and children whose doctors have prescribed service dogs to help with various medical conditions.

Army veteran Chau came to Operation Freedom Paws just as the COVID pandemic was beginning. Of course, at that time none of us knew how lengthy, far-reaching or deep its impact would be. Soon after starting the program, Chau's job was eliminated. He had to quit school because he was unable to focus. He was the sole caretaker for elderly family members. All of these burdens combined had a very negative impact on his quality of life, and he repeatedly thought of suicide. 

Then he reached the milestone in training where he was able to take Apollo home. There were some adjustments of course, but OFP's program taught Chau how to use Apollo's alerts to cope with the many challenges he was facing. In the ensuing months, this team has come to exemplify OFP's teachings. Chau is currently one of our mentor-trainers, helping other clients on their journey with their service dogs; he is also back in school. Apollo's favorite alert is to take his section of the leash in his mouth, and lead Chau to a seat when he needs to take a break. They are an amazing team!