1st Responder Canine Service Dogs

A wonderful mission, but unfortunately a terrible organization. What started as an organized program has now become something that needs to be dissolved. I was a mentor for 8 months to a wonderful dog. The handlers are the only ones who show care and support for the dogs. I understand this is a business and needs/money sometimes come first, but the dogs were treated like items and not animals. The handlers are completely kept out of the loop, there is not a certified trainer anymore, the website describes a training facility that doesn't exist. While I was there we never worked on training that would provide emotional support, only good pet behavior. I do not see how this company is fulfilling this mission anymore and it makes me so sad to see as the dream that created this program was incredible. We were trusted to be responsible for training the dogs, but they wouldn't even trust us with their dog food and started rationing us out. We were told to train for the Service Dog public access test and we met up multiple times a week to ensure our dogs were perfect. Come to the test to find out it's just an evaluation that essentially didn't matter. According to the website: "A Service Dog is specially trained to benefit with tasks such as: Retrieving items, Opening and closing doors, and Interrupting stress cues and reduce symptom severity." Once our main trainer had left in December we never practiced these skills or were taught how to train our dogs to. My dog was able to be placed, but the handoff was nothing like I'd imagine it would be. There was no transitioning, no helping the dog or the new handler get accustomed to each other, no helping the new owner continue the training seeing as she hadn't passed any type of test. The website states: "Must be able to travel to First Responder Headquarters for minimum of 2 weeks for training." There is no headquarters and there is no training. If I thought I would be getting a support/ service dog after spending my life dedicated to the safety of others, I would be terribly disappointed. My recommendation is not to donate a dime to FRK9 and instead be focusing on an organization that helps 1st responders.