Only one in 100 people who need service dogs are able to get them, says Marci Turso, director of operations for the Charlotte area non-profit Project 2 Heal.
The organization breeds, raises and donates Labrador retrievers to help solve that problem. So far, it has donated 366 puppies to be service dogs for veterans, children with special needs and people with disabilities.
“The goal is to get quality, healthy, genetically sound, well-socialized puppies into the world so they can succeed [as service dogs],” explains Turso. “The idea is to reduce the time people need to wait for a dog.”
Co-founders Charlie and Sandy Petrizzo started breeding Labrador retrievers for service work in 2004 in Waxhaw. For seven years, they self-funded their work before creating Project 2 Heal in 2011.
One of the problems, the Petrizzos realized, was that many service dog training organizations don’t have breeding programs. They often have to rely on training dogs from shelters, but on average, only one in 12 of these dogs can be successfully trained as service dogs.
Turso says it costs $25,000 to $40,000 to train service dogs, so breeding and donating dogs is much more efficient and gets the dogs into the hands of people who need them the most faster. Most puppies get sent to the partner organizations at about eight weeks old.
Last year, Project 2 Heal donated 31 puppies to different organizations in and around Charlotte.
“We spend a lot of time raising them properly, socializing them, exposing them to a lot of stressors, and building their neurological systems or nervous systems so that when they go off to organizations, they've already got a good foundation to hopefully move on with their training,” says Turso.
Earlier this year, the non-profit started a campaign specifically to give a service dog to a 5-year-old girl from Charlotte named Joy Piscitelli, who has a rare neurological disorder. The Charlotte community raised the $30,000 to train a dog for Piscitelli in just 72 hours.
“It's our first child campaign we've ever run,” Turso says. “I get a little emotional when I think about it.”
Project 2 Heal has also started a “Giving Tuesday” campaign where it selects a local veteran to receive a service dog. A dog named Prince will be a lifeline to Marine Corps and National Guard veteran Peter Chryst, who struggles with Parkinson’s disease.
There are multiple ways to get involved with Project 2 Heal. Turso says they always need volunteers to take care of the puppies’ litter space. While there is a lot of cleanup involved, there’s also plenty of time for puppy snuggles.
They also invite kids to come and play with the puppies on weekends as part of their socialization program to expose the dogs to children’s demeanors.
Another Project 2 Heal program is called “Stress Down Days.” Companies pay to bring puppies to their offices for a couple of hours. It gives employees a morale boost and helps socialize the puppies.
The nonprofit aims to grow these programs and more over the next five to 10 years.
“Everyone [here] has a really big heart for what we do,” Turso says.
Project2Heal.org
“The idea is to reduce the time people need to wait for a service dog.”