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.
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.
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.
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.
We Need Your Support
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.