Saber Life Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly trained assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships. As a recipient of a Saber Life service dog, you are always in the Saber Life family – what sets us apart is the personalization and human-first approach we take with our clients. It is our mission to make service dogs accessible to all members of the community.
All veterans and individuals with a qualifying need are eligible to receive a Saber Life Foundation service dog.
Saber Life Foundation trains FIVE types of assistance dogs:
- Mobility/Stability Dogs – Assists individuals by performing daily tasks requiring movement or extra physical support. These dogs are slightly larger in stature in order to help perform physical duties.
- Autism Dogs – Assists individuals with navigation in social settings, providing safety from darting into danger, tracking assisting, interrupting harmful behavior(s), and alerting another individual to a potentially dangerous situation.
- Diabetic Alert Dogs – Detects chemical changes in blood sugars and alerts handler accordingly.
- Seizure Response Dog – Predicts and alerts to oncoming seizures to remove themselves from a potentially unsafe environment. Aids an individual experiencing an epileptic seizure by alerting another individual and other trained tasks to assist the individual coming out of a seizure.
- Psychiatric Dogs – Not all disabilities are visible, this dog is trained to provide a wide array of tasks in response to the handler’s specific emotions and stressors. This is not an emotional support animal (ESA).
Thank you for your service.
Physical Limitations and Disabilities
Saber Life Foundation service dogs can be trained to aid in a number of daily tasks to aid a number of physical limitation and disabilities.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
With the increase in military veterans returning with PTSD, Saber Life Foundation program does place service dogs with veterans with PTSD and other mental disabilities from honorable service. Dogs can be trained in tasks including, but not limited to nightmare interruption, turning on lights, retrieving items, and supporting their handler in crowded public situations that might provoke anxiety.
Tasks we train for.
Saber Life Foundation’s service dogs are custom trained to perform a limited set of practical tasks geared towards assisting individuals with physical disabilities to lead more independent lives.
- Retrieve and deliver dropped items
- Tug to open a drawer or a door
- Laundry
- Pull a lightweight wheelchair over a short distance
- Stability for balance
- Mobility assistance
- Turn lights on/off
- Deep pressure therapy – Laying across one’s body/Legs to decrease anxiety, panic attacks, restless leg, and to prevent self-harm
- Respond to an epileptic individual having a seizure by alerting another individual to prepare for a safe environment, orienting recipients with hearing impairment to sounds that may trigger epilepsy
Tasks we do not train for:
Although our trained service dogs find an incredible depth of emotion in the bond between themselves and their handlers, it goes beyond just the working tasks, Saber Life Foundation does not place dogs’ with individuals for the primary benefit of emotional support or social support. In addition, Saber Life Foundation’s dogs are NOT trained to do the following:
- Guide work for the blind
- Recognize and/or mange undesirable human behavior or provide supervision, navigation, or safety from environmental hazards
- Respond aggressively or provide personal protection
- Assist with the management of mental illness as a primary condition
If you have any questions on whether a service dog is right for you, please reach out to us!
Step 1: Interested applicants should submit the application form online.
Step 2: The foundation will schedule a follow up introductory call, typically within two weeks of submitting the initial application materials.
Step 3: Applicants moving on to the next step in the process will need to submit:
- Documentation from a doctor or licensed professional supporting medical diagnosis that would demonstrate benefit from a service dog.
- Proof of income.
Step 4: Background check
Step 5: Home inspection
Step 6: The Saber Life Foundation Board will make a final determination on fit for the Saber Life Foundation service dog program.
Our waitlist is first-come, first-serve. We understand how life-changing a service dog can be to you or your family and work diligently to ensure our processes can provide you and your loved one’s the benefit of a service as quickly as possible. We will discuss your dog’s specific timeline with you during the application process.
Disabilities do not discriminate against socio-economic status, and neither do we! We pride ourselves on providing service dogs for all income levels. Through generous donations and partnerships, we are able to make this happen and therefore do not disclose fixed pricing for our service dogs.
Saber Life Foundation’s puppies are raised by our foster volunteers* who provide a safe home and assist with training instruction from our professional trainer. Our professional training staff travels to each foster’s home to not only train our dogs, but also our foster volunteers. The trainer returns on a weekly basis to ensure training is progressing accordingly before moving into the next stage of training. This “team” of foster and service dog, simulates the team that will exist when the dog is eventually placed into the recipient’s home.
Once placed in the recipient’s home, the trainer will continue their in-person work with the recipient and service dog until the team has reached a proficiency in all tasks.
*Note: Timing of the dog being in foster care may vary by the specific tasks the dog must learn and their mastery of tasks.
We do not train dogs from outside of the Saber Life Foundation program to be service dogs. Each Saber Life dog is hand-picked by our training staff from our certified breeders. Trainers use standard behavioral testing methods to ensure each dog is suited to be a potential service dog. We do not utilize previously owned dogs as our dogs start their training at the age of 9 weeks old.
When Saber Life Foundation dogs are finally placed into the recipient’s home, they will have reached mastery of all tasks, with the exception of those that must specifically be taught after final placement between handler and dog; or that are specifically tailored to the recipient’s home environment.
During the transition period from the foster home to placement, our trainers work with the recipient and their service dog to implement all training tasks that have been mastered. If there are further skills that need to be learned at a later time, our team will work with you for any ongoing training.