05/18/2026
Organizations like Steadfast Service Dogs are changing lives in ways that go far beyond what most people ever see. From helping children with autism gain confidence, comfort, and independence, to supporting veterans, first responders, and individuals and families impacted by the Parkland shootings, their mission is rooted in compassion, healing, and hope.
Now they’re working toward opening a dedicated training center so they can continue expanding that impact and helping even more people in need.
This is a long read but one well worth your time! If their mission speaks to you, please consider supporting their fundraiser or sharing their donation page to help them continue this incredible work. Snouticus the Massive German Shepherd, Waffles the WonderSnout., Steadfast Service Dogs
Sometimes it helps to understand the story behind an organization before you commit to a donation. This story is a bit long, but we hope you’ll read it anyway.
Steadfast Service Dog’s story began with one incredible dog named Snouticus. Snouticus excelled at every training aptitude; tracking and trailing, scent work, all levels of obedience, and handler protection. Then everything changed when it became obvious that what he most excelled at and enjoyed was what his handler also most needed… service dog work. He was scent focused and able to detect high and low blood sugar for our Co-Founder, Andre, while also performing PTSD tasks.
After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida (aka “Parkland Shooting,”) Andre and Snouticus went to meet students who had been injured and/or otherwise affected by the shooting. We wanted to help. We had already successfully tested a purpose-breeding to verify that we could reproduce those service dog aptitudes so prevalent in Snouticus. And that is how we really got our start.
Steadfast Service Dogs was a brand new nonprofit organization when Covid hit… but we persevered, because during that challenging time, there were many people struggling, especially with PTSD and psychiatric diagnoses. The pandemic did nothing for people already in crisis. If you were followers during this time, you know that we struggled and operated on a shoestring budget. We sacrificed personally so that we could help others. We were too small and not politically well-connected enough to qualify for any of the Covid era loans that helped “small businesses.” We had no staff… just us and our fantastic kids. We took no paychecks. The nonprofit couldn’t afford it, so we just pushed forward.
Flash forward to three years ago when we had a life-changing traffic accident. While sitting at a stop, turn signal on, waiting for a car to pass from the opposite lane, we were struck at over 70mph by someone who thought it was 7:00am rather than 7:00pm. He was speeding to a surgery that was actually scheduled to occur the following morning. Video footage shows him hitting us without ever hitting his breaks, spinning our car around and “driving right through us” until his car eventually failed approximately ¼ mile down the road. The car was totaled, but far worse, each of us suffered life-changing physical damage. Where we had once juggled all of the nonprofit tasks easily, we were stymied by concussions, soft tissue damage, a traumatic brain injury, and a hematoma so extensive that it created nerve and tissue damage. This slowed us down. This made us think. We could not continue to do this alone long term.
For years we had “made things work” and “pushed through things,” working harder to achieve the desired results. The accident brought us to face our own mortality and our limitations, which would only increase with age. We knew that in order to preserve the organization and leave it (eventually we will have to retire – eventually) prosperous and with a long term successful future, we needed to change several things fairly quickly.
Our existing living and business situations were too intertwined. We happily raised and socialized puppies in our family room – and we were very proud of this, but having no division between work and home meant that we could not have employees and volunteers help us as much as we really needed and would need going forward. (We couldn’t afford employees anyway, but vision is required in business planning.) Not having a facility designed for what we do was holding us back and making everything much more difficult and three times as time consuming. No one in their right mind would ever take this on.
During 2025, we made our existing handlers and “handlers in waiting” aware of our plans to advance the nonprofit to a training center facility and to delay future litters until the following year. It was our plan to be in the new training center before any new litters were born. We planned ultimately for either a Tank/Valya, Tank/Freya, or Waffles/Sasha litter to be sired in 2026. Unfortunately, our 18-year-old, who is amazing in every way except sometimes not listening to the “whole story” knew that we intended to eventually breed Tank and Valya. He missed the part about mating in 2026. Ahh… yet another reason for division of business and home.
On November 30, 2025 we had the most recent litter of puppies. Three have been placed as service dogs, which made the inconvenient timing well worth it, but again, much more difficult than planned. We will be sharing the stories of the service dog handler teams from this litter; Ange and Jasmine, Jenny and Charlie, and Lily and Sterling over the next few days. We - and they - are excited that they will be the first group of handlers to work at the training center! Many of our other service dog/handler teams will be coming in for training at the new center this year as well, and we cannot wait to work with them in a more controlled and comfortable environment.
Each day we will alternate between spotlighting a service dog/handler team and discussing how the training center will help them specifically – or we will explain the specific features planned for the center, as we continue to share our story and answer questions.
For now, we ask that you support this game-changing endeavor in one of the following ways:
1) Donate through Network for Good: https://steadfastservicedogs.networkforgood.com/projects/300681-steadfast-service-dogs-snouticus-national-training-center
The Network for Good fundraiser covers the entire project and is setup with “Impact Statement” donation suggestions (or you can choose your own amount.)
2) Donate through PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=XSFGXPV8L3UFW
The PayPal fundraiser focuses on Phase 1 of the project, the phase necessary to allow us to utilize the training center with our service dog teams.
3) If you are unable to donate, please share our links and our story with someone who can. Sharing is also very helpful!
Thank you so much for helping us bring this dream into fruition.
