Help 4 Paws 2 Freedom

4 Paws 2 Freedom

Rancho Cordova, California

Cause Description:
The Mission of 4 Paws 2 Freedom 4 Paws 2 Freedom’s primary purpose is to educate and enrich the lives of Veterans suffering the effects of Post Traumatic Stress arising from their military service; First Responders whose daily work puts them at risk of traumatic injury and to educate the community on the value of dogs helping humans. Our model is to train human-dog teams to anticipate known triggers and ameliorate reactivity in the human partner, as well as grounding and stress mitigation through trained tasks. These skills empower people suffering from traumatic injury to reclaim areas of functionality that have been lost to them and prevent further trauma. 4 Paws 2 Freedom’s mission to improve the lives of veterans with traumatic injury through education and training their own service dog has been saving lives. Within a week of Travis and Galaxy being placed together, Galaxy saved Travis’ life. A dizzy spell caused Travis to fall, hitting his head and rendering him immobile. Galaxy stayed with him, nudging him and keeping him awake until Travis’ wife got home. The hospital credited Galaxy for keeping him alive. Our Project for Underserved Veterans will provide vets with severe PTSD/TBI an educational opportunity to train their own service dog at a more relaxed pace with the same results as our other service dog courses by extending the class to a year in length. We will also teach classes for veterans who’ve bonded with a dog that is unable to be a service dog. Dogs learn to provide grounding for anxiety and to interrupt nightmares. After students have graduated, Graduate School allows teams to brush up on skills and learn new ones.

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