Helping others, one dog at a time

I love reading about good organizations and exceptional people that do things for the good of others, and I stumbled upon a article about Lori Stevens.

Lori Stevens~ a award-winning certified pet trainer (CPDT) in Rockwall,Texas has a heart of gold and is passionate about helping others through her work with the Disabled Veterans. She founded an organization in February of 2006 called the Patriot Paws Service Dogs (a 501C3 organization) and has great success. Her goal is to “give back the freedoms that were lost to the disabled veterans and help them in their struggle to live as independently as possible”.

Lori has paired up with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the inmates are trained and supervised while training the dogs. It is a great way to keep the inmates interested in something, help humanity and do good and maybe make up for some of the decisions made in their lives.

Training these dogs does not come cheap as it runs about 20,000 to train one dog from start to finish and they soley rely on donations. All training is approved and supervised by Lori and her Patriot Paws staff. It takes over a year to train one service dog and the recipient will have to travel to Rockwall to spend some time with the dog and Lori before being given the dog.

Lori has been on the David Letterman show and Animal Planet’s “Pet Star”. I am sure there are a million stories done on this great woman and wonderful organization and I just wanted to be a part of sharing it. She also had a story done on Nightly News with Brian Williams May, 2009.

If you are interested in helping Lori and Patriot Paws, please feel free to donate and or visit their site. If you are a a Veteran and would like to fill out an application for a service dog, please do. If you would like to volunteer your time, Patriot Paws needs dog walkers, dog bathers, errand runners and volunteers to help raise money.