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Paws for Purple Hearts - Service Dogs for our Warriors

Paws for Purple Hearts – Service Dogs for our Warriors

To celebrate the anniversary of International Assistance Dog Week, we are extremely excited to reveal our brand new Paws for Purple Hearts informational video highlighting our mission. It shows the culmination of years of hard work and dedication from our teams across the country that make PPH what it is today.

Watch the Video

How Veterans Help Train Service Dogs for Other Veterans

Paws for Purple Hearts (PPH) Senior Program Instructor, Dan Fudge, is interviewed by Fox TV during the 4th of July weekend.  He provides an in-depth explanation of how PPH supports our Veterans.  His dog, Kolenko, demonstrates how he helps a Veteran relieve stress.

Watch the Video
Check out our live puppy cam!"

Watch our new, live puppy cam!

The live camera is ON at 7 o’clock am Pacific, and then OFF at 9 o’clock pm Pacific each day.

Watch the live feed

How Veterans Help Train Service Dogs for Other Veterans

Paws for Purple Hearts (PPH) Senior Program Instructor, Dan Fudge, is interviewed by Fox TV during the 4th of July weekend.  He provides an in-depth explanation of how PPH supports our Veterans.  His dog, Kolenko, demonstrates how he helps a Veteran relieve stress.

Watch the Video

Become a Volunteer

Want to support our military heroes? If so, taking advantage of Paws for Purple Hearts volunteer opportunities is the perfect way.

Join our energetic crew and pick the task that suits you best. You could help with puppy care, greet Warriors at the front desk, or even help maintain our PPH centers. Regardless of the task, you’re helping Warriors heal. Your time also helps them as Warriors train service dogs for Veterans and active duty Service Members with challenges.

Volunteer With PPH

We Need Your Support

Donate Now

Donations to Paws for Purple Hearts can change a Warrior’s life from hopelessness to optimism.

Your generous, tax-deductible donation helps thousands of Warriors facing the visible and invisible wounds of war.  Our Canine Assisted Warrior Therapy helps them heal as they help others – all with the goal of raising top tier service dogs for Veterans and active duty Service Members with mobility and trauma challenges.

Donations Help With:

Food and Dietary Supplements

To learn nearly 100 service dog commands, each Paws for Purple Hearts dog needs proper nourishment. This includes premium food, supplements, and of course, treats to motivate learning. In the two-year service dog training period, nourishing each pup costs about $1,400.

In addition, high quality nourishment is essential to helping PPH pups thrive. After all, thriving puppies today become tomorrow’s top tier service dogs for Veterans and active duty Service Members. And just as importantly, it helps them live long, healthy, and productive lives.

Medicine, Vaccines, and Veterinary Care

At PPH, we aim to to raise the healthiest and happiest service dogs for our Warriors. Puppies are vulnerable to illness, parasites, and many medical issues, so routine vet checkups and preventive treatments are critical. Paws for Purple Hearts spends an average cost of $2,925 on vet visits, exams, vaccines, and preventative care to ensure each our of dogs are in great health.

Training Equipment & Simulation Materials

It’s a marvel to see our amazing PPH service dogs perform tasks. Paws for Purple Hearts dogs can open and retrieve items from the refrigerator. They can pull a wheelchair bound Warrior up a ramp. They nose light switches and elevator buttons. Teaching service dogs for Veterans and active duty Service Members to help means training them where people do these tasks.

This could be in a home-like environments created in our centers. For other tasks, we go to the right kind of location to work with them. On average, we spend about $2,500 per dog on training equipment for service dogs for Veterans and active duty Service Members.

Operating PPH Training Centers

A PPH center is busy place! At any given time, we may have dogs at various levels of training, volunteers making treats or cleaning kennels, puppy parents doing pick-ups and drop-offs, or members of the community touring the facility.

Paws for Purple Hearts centers also hold therapeutic intervention sessions. Each week, Warriors take part in Canine Assisted Warrior Therapy at our PPH centers where they work with our highly-skilled trainers to learn to train our dogs.

Our centers are the hub for our important work – training service dogs for Veterans and active duty Service Members. While we try hard to control costs, each center costs around $300,000 to open and an addition $200,000 to operate per year.

Warriors Helping Warriors

Our Next Event:

Paws for Purple Hearts Bay Area Graduation

on the USS Hornet in Alameda
Saturday, July 22 at 11am

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Find out more

Paws for Purple Hearts Success

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Lives We've Directly Improved
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Therapy Session Participation (session slots filled) *Many Warriors attend multiple sessions*
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Dogs We've Deployed

Recent News and Events

Paws for Purple Hearts Latest Blogs

Testimonials and Quotes

  • The program helps not only the Veteran who receives the dog as theirs, but it also helps our healing process while we train them.

    A PPH Veteran-trainer

  • One of my treatment goals was to get better sleep.  Having Lief let me feel safe, and I started sleeping better.  She actually woke me from a nightmare, too... My anxiety level went down.  I was not so hypervigilant when I had her.

    Tim T. PPH Veteran-trainer

  • Webb was so much help to me while I was recovering in the VA Menlo Park.... When both King and Webb came to visit, I was in heaven as I have two Bernese Mountain dogs that I hadn't seen in weeks.

    Bill Dable Combat Infantry Veteran

  • Ethan, a PPH dog, showed me there is love and happiness, outside of grief and despair.

    A PPH Warrior Canine Trainer

  • PPH was the best therapy for my husband and it brought him closer to me and our daughter

    Wife of a PPH Participant

  • There's only one word for my PPH dog Ollie:  Priceless!

    Rob S, a PPH Service Dog Recipient

  • Our PPH facility dog's impact has been substantial.  The fact of the matter is that he boosts moral for the employees, keeps us sane, and the clients love working with him.

    Mental Health Employee

  • “Learning to be more patient and understanding. How dogs think helps me improve on trying to understand others.”

    Jeff

  • “Working with the dogs gives me peace of mind and helps me control my anxiety issues so I can lead a more productive life.”

    Monty

  • “When I was working with Paul (dog), I stayed calm and was less irritable and more focused and open to treatment at Menlo Park VA.”

    Kawika

  • “The training helps me lower my stress level and blood pressure. The comfort I get from the dogs far out weighs the thoughts of suicide. Not one negative thought has entered by mind since I started training with the dogs.”

    John

  • “The comfort of the service dogs distracts from negative thoughts.”

    Nick

  • “The dog Leif helped me with my self-esteem. People noticed a difference in when I had her and I’m grateful to Sandra for letting me be a part of this training.”

    Tim

  • “I looked at this program as a privilege and honor to be a small part of a dog’s life and knowing I was helping a fellow Vet.”

    Frank

  • “The program gave me a sense of responsibility and helped me lower my isolation.”

    Dennis

  • “The Paws for Purple Hearts program gave me a renewed sense of purpose. I was “giving back” and helping another Vet who was not expecting anything in return. It helped me with anger, self-esteem and survival guilt.”

    John

  • “Many of our Veterans report that the dogs help them ‘get out of their own head’ and be more present.”

    Caroline Wyman Chief of Recreation Therapy Service at Palo Alto VA states

  • “These dogs can really sense your mood. They know when you’re having a bad day. They give you companionship without judgment. Ibarra (dog) doesn’t need to know why I have the symptoms I have. He just wants to be with me.”

    John Crofut 71 years old, Vietnam Vet
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