Service Dog Program

To qualify for our program, you:

• Are an honorably discharged military Veteran as evidenced by your DD214.
• Have been diagnosed with a Mental Health Condition.
• Be a First Responder.
• Are currently in or will seek mental health counseling. A service dog is considered one ‘tool in the toolbox.’ Successful outcomes are best achieved with a multi-faceted approach to healing the invisible wounds of war.
• Are physically and logistically able to own and care for a dog

No, our program is entirely funded by charitable and private donations and completely free of charge for you. However, you must be able to financially afford having a dog. This includes veterinary care, dog food and other routine miscellaneous expenses.

We do our best to match the appropriate dog temperament to each individual Veteran. However, every dog needs daily exercise – tired dogs make for happy handlers. At a minimum, you must be able to walk your dog for at least one mile, twice a day. K9s on The Front Line’s Service Dogs are not designed for physical impairments – if this is what you are searching for please reach out to us and we will work with you to find an organization that can help you.

The Service Dog program will have you log at least 240 training hours and 60 public access hours, over a period of 4-5 months. During that time you need to attend weekly, supervised training sessions, every week. Missed training sessions must be made up. You need to have at least two hours of daily training at home, and record these home sessions in a log.

The companion dog program is similar in structure, but substantially shorter, with approximately 75 training ours over an 8-week period.

K9s on The Front Line assumes no financial responsibility for the animal provided to the Veteran. Although we are involved with the matching and procurement of a suitable K9 for each Veteran, it is imperative that each Veteran, and their family, understand that there is a financial commitment to caring for your dog. 

Your K9 partner will be YOUR Service Dog but will undoubtably become a part of your family. Family members are not advised to feed the dog, exercise the dog, or train the dog. This is your job as the dog’s handler, and it cannot be delegated. The training philosophy and methodology you will learn is based on hundreds of combined years of our police K9 handlers’ street experience. If these basic responsibilities are passed on to others in your family, the K9 does not know who he is working for. If you want the program to work for you, you must trust the process!

The first few weeks can be tough – we won’t lie to you! When your patience wears thin, think about how your dog must be feeling. They are in a brand-new place with brand new people. They could be your best friend immediately or they might be slow to trust and slow to open up. Either situation is fine! Dogs are emotionally intelligent creatures with feelings and insecurities of their own. Every Veteran who has completed our program has joked about wanting to quit at some point in their first few weeks. This program is a two-way street; your dog wants you to be his partner, not his dictator. Allow your dog to be imperfect, to make mistakes. Allow your dog to have an off-day – they are certainly going to allow this for you.  Rarely, we have had the circumstance that dog and Veteran just weren’t a good match and we work with them to find another dog. 

We consider Veterans/First Responders with an existing dog to be trained as their future Service Dog, in select circumstances only, and after passing a number of tests for suitability by our K9 trainers. In our experience, most existing pet/family dogs do not qualify as a suitable Service K9 candidate. In such cases, some Veterans/First Responders added a Service Dog to their household, and everything worked out very well. This is handled on a case by case basis as adding another pet to a household adds a dynamic that cannot always be foreseen.