Our beginning: Message from our Founder; In 2008 I met a veteran who came into Bogarts Bone Appetit where I held dog training classes. He was wearing an Army shirt; his dog was clearly hard for him to handle. I approached him and offered to help, but he seemed a little apprehensive, I quickly said it would be at no cost to him. I told him that my father was a veteran, that I noticed his shirt, and would like to use my skills as a dog trainer to assist him as my way of thanking him for his service. That night was our beginning; through the connections I made with veterans that I helped, and the Southern Nevada VA doctors hearing about the impact the dogs had on their veterans and the unforeseen benefit of teaching veterans how to train their own dogs, this program started to take its form. Through this, I also found out how veterans were being taken advantage of by other dog trainers, paying hundreds of dollars for mediocre training. In 2010 the VA approved a pilot program for companion dogs in lieu of psychiatric medication, veterans would take their prescriptions to rescues, pounds, and breeders, they were either donated dogs these places could not adopt out or breeders would give them puppies the breeder knew would have issues as they grew and they had to get rid of them. Veterans were unaware of what was happening, but I knew, I had volunteered with rescues for years and I was aware of what some would do just to place a dog, just as I knew what breeders were capable of, and did something about it. I traded my dog training to help keep the rescues dogs in adopted homes in trade to obtain dogs that came through their rescue that I knew had all of the qualities to become a service dog. I paid for the food, training gear, and medical for all of the dogs I placed with veterans. In 2012 I was in a horrible car accident, throughout the six months of recovery and therapy I was unable to hold my veteran group, help rescues, or foster/train rescue dogs for donation. I was receiving multiple requests from veterans wanting to join our group or needed what was referred to back then as a companion dog. A significant moment was watching an NBC broadcast of Marines in Afghanistan. One Marine interviewed had said he felt like they were forgotten about that Iraq was a popular war and Afghanistan was not, that they were merely existing. The impact of what he said was so profound that I wanted to create something that would be there for our military when they got home. I had a substantial insurance settlement coming to me, and I used it to file for a 501 c 3 and fund the program so I could help veterans train or obtain service dogs, but also help homeless and low-income veterans with dog and cat food, help with medical for their pets. At this time veterans were waiting up to 3 years for their claims to go through, they were barely surviving, their animals were the only lifeline they had, and we were going to make sure they could not only keep their animals but could get food and assistance to make sure they were happy and healthy. We are in our 16th year of the program, 10 years as a nonprofit, we are all volunteers and work tirelessly every day to overcome challenges that life brings to be a resource that our military and veterans can turn to when they need it. 
 
Sincerely,  
Milana Rice 
Certified Veteran Advocate #794 
APDT - IDTP - AKC CGC #71306 ATT #108865 
Veteran Suicide and Crisis Prevention and Intervention Specialist