Another Veterans has a Service Dog!

by RjMar 27, 2023Uncategorized0 comments

The Adventures of Josh and Hero!

Another day, Another week at GatorlandK9.

After months of helping Veteran Josh Schutt raise funding to train and acquire his service do we are pleased to share that he has brought home “HERO” after being certified this past Friday January 17th.

Veterans who live with PTSD need our help to continue to raise awareness of how a Service Dog can change their life for the better. With Hero by his side we hope Josh Schutt’s quality of life will improve each day as it has before for our other Veterans and their service dogs.

We are going to let these pictures tell the story of Josh and Hero’s new life together.

Josh contacted GatorlandK9 and asked for their help. He and his wife Kirstie Jo were newly married and ready to start their new life together. Josh was having a difficult time with his PTSD and after researching Service Dogs he contacted our organization.

Josh is a US Army Veteran living with PTSD & he wanted to acquire one of our German Shepherd service dogs. Josh was connected with our Veteran Program Director Jill Pavel, who helped Josh raise funding through press, media, events and online fundraising platforms. Josh also hit the street running advocating for himself and asking his community and home town to help him raise funding.

In five months we had raised $ 20,000.00 for this mission to move into it’s next phase which was to bring Josh down to GatorlandK9 in Florida, meet his new service dog HERO and complete handler training so he and Hero could become certified.

We had parades, bike runs, auctions and more!

Without the help of many this would not be possible. GatorlandK9 is working to put service dogs into the hands of as many Veterans as possible, we cannot do it alone! Thank you to everyone who has supported our efforts.

Meet Hero who was our October 2013 Dog of the Month.