Frequently Asked Questions

Freedom Dogs provides support for active-duty and veteran service members suffering from PTSD and/or TBI with the use of specialty-trained service dogs.

Freedom Dog participants must be referred to our program by a mental health provider. The primary medical concern MUST be PTSD and/or TBI, NOT a physical injury.

Freedom Dogs help participants by alerting to oncoming episodes of PTSD, retrieving dropped or lost items, waking participants from nightmares, applying physical pressure for comfort/re-focusing, acting as a barrier between the participant and triggering items like crowds of people, acting as a brace for balance, and many other behaviors to aid their participant.

Freedom Dogs pays for the care of all Freedom Dogs for the entire life of the dog (from puppyhood to end of life). Selecting dogs from known sources allows us to mitigate (as much as possible) unknown hereditary medical issues that could shorten the life of the dog and/or incur large expenses. If a Freedom Dog has an unexpectedly short life, it can cause a great deal of emotional strain for participants who are already struggling. Incurring large expenses also limits the number of dogs we are able to include in our program, therefore limiting the number of service members we are able to assist.

The goal of the program isn’t to place permanent dogs. The goal of the program is to help our participants heal, whatever that looks like. Many of our participants graduate from our program and are able to return to their lives without the aid of a permanent service dog. For those who feel a permanent service dog is necessary, Freedom Dogs provides that dog for them.

A Partner Dog is a service dog who works with multiple program participants during training sessions and public outings. They not only act as intermittent service dogs for participants but also act as program ambassadors at public events.

Freedom Dogs covers all expenses for every Freedom Dog in our program, even if they are permanently placed with a program graduate. This includes food, equipment, veterinary care and end of life expenses.

It takes about 2 years to train a service dog. It costs about $50,000 to cover costs from puppyhood to end of life.

Freedom Dogs is funded by individual donations, grant awards and corporate sponsorships.

All of our trainers are volunteers so unfortunately we do not have the resources available to evaluate and train outside dogs. Additionally, not every dog is meant to be a service dog. A service dog, a Freedom Dog, must have a particular temperament to be able to do their job. By evaluating a dog as a young puppy and beginning training as early in life as possible we are able to reduce the chances of the dog needing a career-change down the road.

By exclusively utilizing purpose-bred dogs in our program, we are giving our dogs the best chance at being successful by knowing where they came from, health history, temperament or behavior concerns that may run in the pedigree. We choose labradors because they are sturdy (inside and out), food motivated (AKA easy to train), low maintenance, and transfer easily between handlers.We also cover 100% of all costs related to our Freedom Dogs. This means being able to predict as much as possible a dog’s future healthcare costs and life expectancy is incredibly important. Being able to look into a dog’s pedigree and identify any concerning genetic health/behavioral issues allows us to control costs as much as reasonably possible.