I started in the United States Army in nineteen ninety three. I was a
military police officer. And when I came in the military, I didn't even
know that working dogs really existed. I didn't know as a profession. I
didn't know that was something you could do. And when I started learning more
about the working dogs and what they do for the military, it was something
I kind of set my sights on to be a part of. So it
wasn't until after I got of the military. I started working with the police
Department, Civilian Police Department, and my goal there was to become a canine
handler and a canine trainer, and that's what I did. And when I
became that, I really started learning more about the impact that you can put
on lives in the community and things like that that really just not only hands
us the safety but the role model that canines and their handlers play. And
I call it the most honorable profession in the world. Talk to me about
that relationship between a handler and their service dog. What is that like?
It's a and like no other. When you have a canine partner and they're
with you twenty four seven, a lot of times you're closer to your canine
partner, like when I have my dog Flash, then you are your family.
They go to work with you, they come home with you, they
go to vacation with you, they go on vacation with you, and they
do other things that you're just an inseparable and inseparable and it's just it's just
a bond that you can't really describe. And that's why when I founded Project
Canine Hero, it's so important to me to make sure that these heroes are
being looked after in their retirement. And you know, we'll talk a little
bit about why that is, but they mean so much to their handlers and
we want to make sure that they're living in the fullest and most productive and
happy life that they can. So, before you started Project Canine Hero,
what did the life of some of these service dogs look like once they were
retired, Once they've done their full tour of service, whether it be for
police dogs or military dog, that's what happens after they retire. Well,
currently, we've gotten a lot better as a society where we're not leaving dogs
behind the war zones as much, we're not seeing them put down like they
were in the Vietnam War. So we've made great strides in that and passing
laws in legislation. However, most of the dogs today get to stay with
their handler, and people think that's great, but a lot of them are
having cancer when foma. We have a dog in the er today with a
chemotherapy or maybe an amputation from a bone cancer. So in no way as
a first responder, a police officer, a soldier, airman, marine capable
of paying for those expensive surgeries, medications office visits sometimes five thousand, ten
thousand, or fifteen thousand dollars or more. So that's on the handler.
That's their responsibility once they adopt to cover all of the health issues that happen
with these dogs. Yes, so specifically in the United States military and the
federal government, there's no program inplace. Some of the local agencies have set
up funds where you know, it may they get a stipend so much per
month, so much per year, but in no way does that really help
with it a serious issue. It might help pay for some food, it
may help with some prescriptions, but it's not going to help with a major
surgery. I mean, I can speak as an owner of a senior dog.
Those bills add up and they add up quickly. And you never want
to be in a position where you have to make the decision between healthcare of
a family member, right, And this is this is you know, a
civilian dog, right, We're not talking about dogs who have been in action
or have you know, served at the side of some of our first responders.
What is that like as a burden on their handlers who do choose to
adopt that, It's a huge burden because two things happen without the help of
an organization like Project Knine Hero. Either they go into extreme personal debt.
They have to put on their credit cards. When you go into these vet
places for emergency, you have to put the credit card down right at that
moment, and that might be five thousands, ten thousand dollars. Let's say
it's blow. We're all kind of familiar with a blow. I mean those
surgeries are expensive. Drop that credit card, or they have a nice hair
credit something that has interest rate that jumps up after so much time, Right,
and so you know, either they go on the financial debt or the
dog simply goes without. So when I found a Project can On here,
those are the things I want to avoid. I was a former military police
officer. I was a former police officer. I was in the federal service,
So it's important to me to make sure they don't go in debt because
I know they're not getting paid any extra money out there. And some of
our soldiers, specifically police officers, they don't have the ability to get a
second job. They can't go out and work part time somewhere. Some of
their jobs don't even allow for that. So and then most importantly, we
don't want to see the dog go without because that's what used to happen.
The dog would simply go without or have to be euthanized because someone just couldn't
pay the bill. So this isn't like this isn't you doing this for fun.
You have dedicated your life, your career to this. Talk to me
about how you made that transition from you know, being a service member into
dedicating your life to Project Canine Hero. Yeah, it was. It was
a hard choice for me at the time, but now it's one when I
look back on, I'm so glad I did. Because you can really never
grow as a nonprofit until you fully dedicate your time to it, you know,
and a lot of people look at how nonprofits ran and you know,
we did really great last year with eighty eight percent program services only five percent
or administration, which is great. And so now I'll maybe we'll do this
for a living. But you know, at the time when I left,
when I started in two thousand and sixteen, I was still a full time
government employee. And the government doesn't really want you to talk about your nonprofit
when you're at work or outside of work or certain things, right they want
you to focus on your government job. And I wasn't. I was working
in the canine program for the United States, like the dogs you see at
the air report listen if for passengers for explosives. I worked in that program,
and you know, I thought, we're never going to get to the
level I want to be if I don't just do this full time. And
I took five hundred dollars in my pocket that year in twenty sixteen and started
this organization. And this year we hope to raise over five million dollars.
How do we help you raise that money? Well, donations obviously help.
We have over five hundred dogs pending application. We're committed to putting in fifty
two new dogs a year, so that's one hero week and each week we
put that new hero in we're committing. I used to make between twenty and
twenty five thousand dollars in the lifetime of that dog. They might be in
for a year, they might be in for five years. Some dogs are
still fairly young when they come in, but the financial helps. And for
the dogs who can't stay with their handlers, we have one hundred and seventy
seven acre rehabilitation rehomie facility in Tennessee, and the ones are going to be
euthanized otherwise, whether they have aggression issues or they just run out of a
place to stay because a family situation, it could be anything. We have
that available for them and everything can be done on Project Canaan hero dot org
and we have a donate button. We have ways that you can people sometimes
leave us estates. Sometimes people do four oh when k transfers were set up
for that. We have a shop on Project Canaan hero dot org which has
our apparel. Is the sweet sweatshirt that you're wearing, this hoodie that you
got on today. This is the Military Working Dog ROSSO hoodie. Rosso had
surgery this week forty two hundred dollars. Who is Rosso? Tell me about
Rosso. Rosso is one of our ambassadors. Two over two years ago.
He was going to be euthanized from the Air Force. He protected the last
two presidents, he protected the President of Japan, served overseas and Operation Inherent
Resolve and Operations Spartan. Shield did over ten secret service missions around the world.
And when his time was up, he was just too aggressive to be
adopted. And why he had a handler that loved him. That handler had
a six month old child. Yeah, and while he still active duty and
can still deploy working on the presidential details and other things, his spouse equipped
with a newborn to handle aggressive military working dog. Right. And I can't
imagine when you're when you choose a career path as a handler that you know
that's that's part and parcel. You know that that's part of the age career.
Right. And so, uh, the kennel master there reached out to
me. I drove all the way to Washington State, I picked up Rosso,
drove him back. That was December of twenty twenty one. He's still
alive. Um, he had he had an emergency surgery this week. But
he's doing well, he's recovering, and you know, it's just a good
example of a military working dog who was trained to be like this, right
if who was selected to act top dog. He I mean, you're protecting
the president at that level, it's like servant. And he protected Air Force
bass and security. So yes, he's supposed to be aggressive, he's supposed
to be fierce, but he's also loyal and he's very loyal to his handler.
It was never a problem with his handler. Was anyone who came around
that wasn't his hand? Yeah, I know I own a little bit about
that at home, you know. So Ross So that's his that's his personality,
but that doesn't mean that he should be put down after a service.
So he lives out at one hundred and seventy seven acre rehabilitationy Homing Center in
Tennessee. And um, he's doing one Police thirteen and uh, you know,
this is a a Rosso sweat shirt. And we have a lot of
a lot of different Appa Project cana hair out or that has other dogs on
it. We have a Duke one and an Arlow one and we have one
with Flash who uh you know, I wanted to get into Flash because Flash
was told me about Flash Police Canaan that helped me start this program. Who's
Flash? Well, Flash was my police Can nine when I when I worked
in Yakima, Washington, and we were there together until I went overseas in
two thousand and eight and I had she had to stay. I took a
job protecting the Ambassador United States. How do you explain that too? How
do you explain Some people say they would never leave their dog behind. But
I was given an opportunity. And I will tell you that I wouldn't be
the founder of this organization if I hadn't made these career moves in my life.
So protecting the ambassador in Iraq and Afghanistan as a dog handler was a
big deal to me. It was an opportunity I just really couldn't pass.
And Flash had to stay, and she worked with two additional handlers. But
when she retired in twenty thirteen, I was an instructor outside the DC area
for the federal government and I was giving the call to get her back.
And I got her back in retirement and she had lyme disease. She had
over three thousand deployments rough on her body. And I noticed then, you
know, even though she had seized millions and millions of dollars of assets in
cash and narcotic related currency and things. None of that can help with her
retirement. So we have a lot of dogs in our program like that who
might work in border patrol or might work you know, on a local drug
task force, and they and they do all these great things, but none
of those funds go to their retirement. So, you know, she really
opened my eyes to what it was like as a hero. In twenty and
eighteen, she was named the law Enforcement Dog of the Year in America.
We were on We're in Beverly Hills. That was through the American Humane whereund
the Hallmark Channel, and it was just it was it was amazing, and
so she got her recognition. And we have two children's books that I wrote,
once called Canine Flash Becomes a Hero and the other's Canine Flash a Hero's
Hero and the true stories about our life and how we started Project Canine Hero
and how we're helping dogs all across the nation, and both of those can
be purchased on a website of Project canan Hero dot org. Do you think
these dogs know that they're heroes? Do you think that, I mean,
you know, you know when you have a special dog right one that obviously
you're connected to and you think the world of them. But do you think
these dogs who have done so much service for us and for our public servants,
that they also know that they're there's something extra special. I think they
do. I think the way they're treated like celebrities and superstars. If you
look at pictures of Flash, he's on the red carpet, they're at the
Beverly Hilton. You know, there's pictures of our online, any of our
ambassadors, they all get the special treatment, and they should. These dogs
put their lives on the line for us. They specifically ones in the military
and the police that we help without question, without hesitation. They don't ask
questions. They do what's expected to them, and they love to do it.
And for that, you know, I always say, you know,
one of our taglines is protecting those who protected us, and that's what we
do that project Can and hero we protect those who protected us. When you
started dipping your toe into this life's work that you're doing, I mean,
you are a CEO of a nonprofit that has got to keep you up at
night. I mean do you ever wake up in the middle of the night
and go, what am I doing what am I doing right now? Well,
to wake up in the middle of night, you'd have to sleep.
Well, that's true. No, it's super important. Hardest part of my
job. Applications coming every day. I know, financially we only can put
in one HERO a week, so we may get up to fifteen twenty applications,
and I have to choose which one we're going to change the lives of.
Now people think of Project CAN and HERO helping the docks. True,
but we're not just helping the docks. When we pay that medical or we
take them in for life and pay all their medical bills, that's helping the
first responder, the soldier, the airman, the marine, and that's changing
lives of their family. That's that's now that their kids can go to college,
they don't have to pay that ten thousand dollars there, they can take
their family on that vacation like any other working American can do, because if
not, they were going to spend that money on their dog. And I
just feel that, you know, we're working with Congress. I've been in
DC here recently good and we're working with Congress to change that to help nonprofits
like ours get funding to help these retired heroes just to make sure they get
the medical care they deserve. Do you think as you were doing this,
there was anything that surprised you about running your own nonprofit. I mean,
coming from your background in the service you've you've given to our country, is
there anything that, like, you know, surprised you about running a nonprofit.
It's probably a lot more work than anyone that would ever think it would
be. You know, we're we're in a good spot because we get a
lot of great pr and people kind of understand. Most people who like us
like police and military, but not everybody does. And you know, there's
every day I have to elete comments or deal with people who are negative towards
police and military dogs and I don't really see a reason for that. But
you know, I understand that not everybody supports them. Maybe they had a
bad encounter with them, but I think the general public really does, really
really does get behind what we do. And for me, you know,
trying to get our facility belts where we need the most help. You know,
donating financially our line is great, but I'm looking for corporations who want
to partner with us to get that rehab rehoming facility built. We have dogs
in waiting that are going to be euthanized otherwise because I don't have a room
for them. We have the space, we have one hundred and seventy seven
acres, but we have plans to build a fourteen a new fourteen run kennel,
indoor play area, adoption cabins, all of these things. I'm looking
for corporations who want to put their name on them, who want to get
involved, and whatever their company name is, we can put their name on
them and help us build those. So hopefully one was listening who wants to
get involved and put their name on a rehab rehoming center and the plans we
have it will be the most comprehensive that I know of in the world.
And we'll take police canines and miltit working dogs and from all over the nation.
And we have one there from Vancouver, British Columbia right now, so
we're international and names K nine Blitz. He's at our facility, so we're
working internationally now. And so I just I just hope because when when people
donate to our cause, and we did lower four million last year, I
hope to do over five million this year, and with that eighty eight percent
of program services and stuff. They want to see it go right to that
bill, and they want to see it go right into the dog food or
the prescription or the medicine right, which is great. But when you're building
a building and you got to bring a water line in off the road and
you gotta worry about the septic of the kennels, Okay, nobody, nobody,
nobody really takes that account that I'll cost money to as part of the
program. So I think some of the biggest hold up for me has just
been getting that help get those buildings built, and that's where we really could
use it the most. So Jason, why don't you tell us again if
you are a business that's hearing this and you'd like to be a part of
the cause, or if you're an individual Jonor who wants to help out,
or if you just want more information about the program, where can they find
that information? Yeah, it's Project Knine hero dot org. It's a project
letter K number nine hero dot org. And we have a contact us on
there. I answer every email personally, hundreds of emails a day. But
you know, I'll make sure I see it and yeah, we're really thankful
for the support that we do get, you know, organizations like iHeartRadio.
Who wants to get out there and promote what we do and promote, you
know, our mission to the world. It's super important. And I'm again,
I'm hoping that someone who's listening wants to help support by putting their name
on a building and helping us get these because it's sad to me to know
that I have the space, but I don't space as in the acreage,
but I don't have the facilities right now to save lives of heroes that served
our country. And you know, I say all the time that they at
their career of protecting us, and I must spend the rest of mine protecting them