Supporting Service Dogs for Service Men & Women #k9sforwarriors

The month of May is National Military Appreciation Month, a time for all of us to remember the sacrifices made by our military and their families. No matter your political view, we all need to let our service men and women know that we appreciate their role in protecting and defending our freedoms every day. To our service men and women we say “thank you for your service”.

This month also happens to be National Pet Month. It is a month to promote responsible pet ownership, to promote the benefits of living with pets and to also raise awareness of the value of working and service animals. That makes May the perfect time to honor our service men and women and the service dogs that help them once they have returned home.

We have talked about K9s for Warriors before on the blog. It is an amazing nonprofit organization right here in Florida that rescues dogs from shelters, trains them as service dogs and provides them to veterans who have become disabled while serving our nation. K9s for Warriors has become the largest provider of service dogs for American veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disability (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and/or military sexual trauma (MST).

Last month, K9s for Warriors graduated its 300th service dog team, six years after they served their very first veteran. They have provided assistance to veterans in 42 states and in more than 150 cities.

“In the beginning, I never imagined we would serve 300 veterans,” said Brett Simon, President of K9s for Warriors. “We have experienced incredible growth and success, graduating eight teams in our first year, and 73 teams last year. However, we’re not at a resting point. Our goal for 2017 is to serve 12 warriors per monthly class.”

In the past, we have supported K9s for Warriors through our blog, hosting a comment-a-thon for Oz’s birthday with each comment being worth $1. Thanks to all of you, we donated $50.

Now, we would like your help so we can make two special donations from the K9s for Warriors Wishlist. All you have to do is:
1) leave a comment on this post about why you feel it is important to support our military and veterans (only one comment per account) and
2) share this post with others and encourage them to leave a comment too.

Our donation will be $185 - that's a lot of comments for us to send these two special gifts to K9s for Warriors:

Welcome Box, which helps welcome a new warrior to Camp K9 with some of the comforts of home (like snacks, toiletries, etc.), and

Kuranda Dog Bed, just like the Kuranda bed Ma built for me, to provide a comfy snooze spot for a service dog in training.

Our Service Men, Women and Dogs Comment-a-thon will be open from now until May 29, 2017 11:59 PM EST. Please help us give a new leash on life to shelter dogs and our veterans.