Healing Paws For Heroes

Kelley Sue and Gil Williams started Healing Paws for Heroes because Kelley as a "Specially Abled", not "Disabled", person (Kelley has rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, seizures, among other things) and having waited for a dog originally, until the vet she worked for pointed out that since "she trained horses and dogs for everyone else why not for herself?", so she did. Her current Service Dog Bogart, an Australian Shepherd, is well known in our area. He is loved by the hospital staff, especially the nurses, and they all remember his name before ours.
  Then after Kelley and Gil met, they had the opportunity to talk to several local veterans and recently Wounded Warriors. They found out through them and research that the list for a trained Service Dog is typically 2-4 years, and in some cases, it can be up to 6-7 years. Our country's soldiers have put their lives on the line for us and should not be pushed to the back of the line. With Kelley's training and veterinary background, as a retired vet tech and horse/dog trainer, they decided to do something about that wait time.
  About the time, they had that thought one of their best friends approached them about training a Service Dog for them because of how wonderful Bogart is. After a few weeks of back and forth, and then looking for a potential candidate dogs, they found one. From then on, you could say the weight of their decision to train for veterans was on the four paws of a mini Aussie named Luna.
  Luna's training and subsequent certification solidified their decision to pursue this action. Now two years later, we are in full swing with seven dogs in training, two recent placements after certification, and a few more in line and training!