Andy is our 1st sponsored Service Dog for a Veteran through our Dogtopia Foundation partnership with K9’s for Warriors. 

We started raising funds for our 1st Service Dog in February of 2021 with dedicated daycare events and fundraisers to reach our goal. It was challenging at times, but our Pet Parents and Dogtopia Foundation supporters stepped up to help us reach our goal of $6,000 by December 2021. We selected K9’s for Warriors as our partner based on their mission for adopting adult dogs from Animal Shelters to train as life partners for Veterans. We were driven to the organization based on 2 things: 1) Saving a shelter dog to give them a strong purpose in life and 2) Success rate for transition from shelter dog to service dog.

We were assigned Andy in January of 2022 and he was at the top of his class, finishing his training in less than two months! Andy moved through his training so quickly! Typically the training process takes quite a bit longer. But it is obvious that Andy was meant for this job and he was so quickly up for the task! K9’s for Warriors shared weekly progress reports from Andy himself as he underwent the many stages of his training. He was placed with his Warrior, Marissa when he graduated in February of 2022. The turn-around from shelter dog to Service Dog is truly a beautiful moment we are so proud to be a part of!

To learn more about Andy, Marissa and their journey together, we have a book proudly displayed in our lobby!