Freedom Service Dogs, Inc.

Freedom Service Dogs transforms lives by partnering people with custom-trained assistance dogs. We envision a world where individuals have the freedom to live their lives to the fullest with custom-trained assistance dogs. Our clients include veterans and active-duty military, children, and adults with disabilities, such as traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and post-traumatic stress. Freedom Service Dogs wishes to increase the quality of life, community integration, social, and family life for people with disabilities by the use of the human-animal bond. Since 1987 Freedom Service Dogs has paired over 500 client-dog teams at no cost to the client.

Freedom Service Dogs (FSD) seeks to become the leader in the service dog field by building strong collaborations with diverse local and national organizations. Assistance Dogs International (ADI), is a crediting body for service dog organizations, and FSD is one of only two ADI accredited organizations in Colorado. Other collaborations include the world-renown Craig Hospital for rehabilitation of spinal cord and other mobility injuries. In addition, FSD advocates for people with disabilities, veterans and children on the autism spectrum in local, regional and national legislative forums.

Freedom Service Dogs seeks to continually improve the the quality of the dogs we graduate. The two factors are the quality of the dogs themselves and the quality of the dog training. FSD has launched an in-house breeding program to supplement other ways of sourcing service dog candidates, such as donations from other service dog organizations and from carefully vetted breeders. In-house breeding program will give us better control over the health, temperament and early socialization of our dogs. In addition, we continue to refine our positive reinforcement (clicker-training) training methods for our service dogs in-training.

Freedom Service Dogs seeks to build engaged, diverse and knowledgeable staff, board of directors and volunteer body. A key strategy is increasing the opportunities for professional development, such as pet CPR and first-aid training and attending the annual Clicker Expo. In addition, an inclusiveness committee was recently convened to come up with a plan to to increase the diversity of our staff, clients and volunteers.

Freedom Service Dogs is one of two accredited ADI-member programs in Colorado. All service dog graduates must be in compliance with all ADI training standards, such as: the service dog must respond to commands (basic obedience and skilled tasks) from the client 90% of the time on the first ask (in all environments); the service dog must be trained to perform at least three visibly identifiable tasks to directly mitigate the client’s disability. FSD's clients must be able to demonstrate knowledge of acceptable training techniques, an understanding of canine care and health, the ability to maintain training and problem solve, continue to train/add new skills, and knowledge of local access laws and appropriate public behavior. FSD is the only ADI certified program in Colorado that trains service dogs for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, and physical disabilities.

Freedom Service Dogs has a knowledgeable staff, with subject matter experts in leadership positions, who continue to engage the staff in in-house continuing education, such as the "Veteran Ready" designation, which FSD earned when 80%+ of the staff had covered the assigned curriculum.

Freedom Service dogs has a state-of -the art 22,000-square-foot dog training facility, with 74 spacious indoor kennels and 60 spacious outside kennels. The design is fully ADA accessible and took into consideration clients' needs, such as windows, mirrors and an open floor plan to mitigate our clients PTS symptoms. The FSD training facility consists of a 5,256-square-foot training area, including a mock home and
airplane spaces. The home space is designed to model a home or apartment and is utilized to simulate training tasks such as opening and closing cabinet drawers, opening and closing a refrigerator to retrieve items, opening and closing laundry machines, helping a person out of bed, waking a person from nightmares, pulling the sheets to make the bed or remove bedding, scanning the perimeter of a room, and more. The training area also includes power chairs and other adaptive equipment, such as crutches, walkers, airplane seats, and manual wheelchairs, to familiarize the dogs with various equipment.

FSD has been a trusted partner, serving people with disabilities in Colorado for over 30 years, and as such has positively impacted the quality of life and levels of independence for more than 500 clients and their families. In 2020, FSD provided custom-trained service dogs to 24 individuals living with disabilities. These individuals included 12 veterans, 5 individuals with physical disabilities, 3 individuals with autism or other neurocognitive differences, and 4 professional therapy dog was placed with a mental health professional, who works with clients in school and private practice settings.

In 2020, FSD provided Lifetime support services to 195 new and former clients, which reflects the increased need for lifetime support services among our clients. . These services included but were not limited to additional training assistance, assistance with enrolling in Veterans Administration support programs for service dog owners, and re-certification for public access test. The FSD client services team reports an even bigger need for support services in 2020 due to the coronavirus, which is causing added stress to our clients and their canines, in terms of mental health, finances, and worst of all, causing re-traumatizing effects amongst our clients with past experience of trauma.