Petco Love Helps Heroes at Both Ends of the Leash this Veterans Day

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Nov 09, 2022, 09:03 ET

Nearly $1M in grant investments support national organizations dedicated to service, therapy, and working pets, focusing on helping veterans

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- National nonprofit Petco Love awards nearly $1 million to support "Helping Heroes" this Veterans Day. The Helping Heroes initiative focuses on organizations that take pets from shelters and transform them into heroes to assist people in need, primarily our nation's veterans. Since 2009, Petco Love's investment of more than $16 million bolsters efforts to train and support animals who dedicate their lives to saving and improving the lives of others.

Petco Love's Helping Heroes initiative focuses on organizations that take pets from shelters and transform them into heroes to assist people in need, primarily our nation’s veterans.

A multi-phase research program at Purdue University indicates that veterans paired with service dogs showed lower PTSD symptom severity and better mental health. Purdue professor Maggie O'Haire said, "We've demonstrated that service dogs can provide a higher quality of life for some of our nation's veterans living with PTSD. Expanded funding, like that provided by Petco Love, is essential to meet the demand to expand this much-needed research."

"This Veterans Day, we are reminded that 18 veterans lose their lives every day to suicide. There is an overwhelming demand for trained service and companion dogs to support their needs," said Petco Love President Susanne Kogut. "We are honored to provide the vital support necessary to assure that more shelter dogs can become trained canine companions to help veterans—saving lives at both ends of the leash."

A selection of organizations receiving investments include:

K9s For Warriors: Trains shelter dogs to be heroes for veterans nationwide with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury and/or military sexual trauma at their main headquarters in Florida and at the Petco Love K9 Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Working Dogs For Vets: Adopts shelter dogs and trains them to help disabled veterans, empowering them as they return to civilian life.
4 Paws 4 Patriots: Provides medical/psychiatric service dogs to change the lives of disabled veterans and their families.
Shelter to Soldier: Adopts dogs from local shelters and trains them to become psychiatric service dogs for post-9/11 veterans suffering from service-related trauma.
K9 Partners For Patriots, Inc.: Adopts qualifying shelter and rescue dogs to help veterans who are facing a war all over again as they cope with anxieties born of service-related PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and/or military sexual trauma.

Visit Petco Love to learn more about Petco Love's lifesaving impact spanning more than two decades and follow along on social media @PetcoLove.

About Petco Love

Petco Love is a nonprofit changing lives by making communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since our founding in 1999 as the Petco Foundation, we've empowered animal welfare organizations by investing $330 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. We've helped find loving homes for more than 6.5 million pets in partnership with Petco and organizations nationwide. Today, our love for pets drives us to lead with innovation, creating tools animal lovers need to reunite lost pets, and lead with passion, inspiring and mobilizing communities and our more than 4,000 animal welfare partners to drive lifesaving change alongside us. Is love calling you? Visit Petco Love or follow at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to be part of the lifesaving work we're leading every day.

About Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine

The Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine seeks to advance global animal and human health and well-being through excellence in learning, discovery and engagement while serving as a major referral center for the diagnosis and treatment of animal diseases. Faculty research both animal and human health, with an emphasis on animal welfare science and the human-animal bond; infectious diseases and immunology; cancer; neuroscience; and musculoskeletal biology and orthopedics. The college also is one of only a few nationally that educate all members of the veterinary team, offering the doctor of veterinary medicine degree as well as bachelor's and associates degrees in veterinary nursing, post-graduate internships and residencies for veterinarians seeking specialty training, and graduate degrees in the departments of Basic Medical Sciences, Comparative Pathobiology, and Veterinary Clinical Sciences. For more information visit www.vet.purdue.edu.

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SOURCE Petco Love