HABRI Central

Our mission to place rescued American Staffordshire Terrier's, Staffordshire Terrier's, American Pit Bulls, American Bullies, English Bulldogs, and other Molosser Breeds, then rehabilitate and train them as Companion, and Service Dogs for fellow Veterans who are suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and Military Sexual Trauma (MST). As a Combat Veteran Myself who suffers from PTSD, I understand the effects PTSD can have on everyday life and how PTSD affects relationships with family, and friends. It is our honor to rehabilitate, train, and place dogs with a well deserving Veteran suffering from PTSD. We strive to place quality trained dogs with our Veteran's. We do not accept dogs into the program without thorough temperament testing. Dogs that fail the temperament training will not continue as a candidate in the program to ensure safety of the Veterans, family, friends, and the general public.
Throughout training the dogs will be socialized with other dogs, animals, people, and the general public. The dogs will be placed in many different situations as our goal is to have a well-rounded socialized and trained dog at the end of the Program. All dogs will be subjected to a public access test upon the completion of their training. We let dogs adjust to their surroundings, then start working on basic obedience training. The veterans and dogs are fully evaluated by our volunteers, and then our team reviews the evaluations and develops a training plan for both the veteran and the dog. If a dog shows the drive and passion to learn, we then continue to the next level where we focus on the specific needs of the Veteran. We are an all-volunteer based organization, veterans and civilians with all levels of skill sets are part of the Dogs For Heroes team. Our corporate office is based in Illinois and we have chapters around the country.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

1. Animal-assisted activities
2. Animal-assisted therapies
3. Dogs
4. Mammals
5. Military Sexual Trauma
6. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
7. rescue dogs
8. Service animals
9. training of animals
10. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
11. veterans
12. volunteers