Donate
General Donations
At Medi-Dogs, we understand all too well how expensive it is to acquire and maintain a working service dog. By partnering with the Center for Community Stewardship, we intend to defray some of these costs to make service dogs more affordable, and therefore more accessible.
Service dogs cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 to fully train. Dogs themselves cost anywhere from $500 for a shelter dog to $4,000 for a well bred Golden Retriever. A dog's care adds costs for the duration of their life: food ($90/month), routine veterinary care ($400/year), preventatives ($35/month), and more. Dogs in our program are trained to a high standard by professional trainers. Additionally, they live at the training facility to expedite the process; however, there are costs associated with their daily board, exercise, and enrichment. Our goal is to balance our high training standards with the intention of keeping costs as low as possible.
General donations to Medi-Dogs are vital to supporting all our programs and allowing us to train and provide dogs who will change their handlers' lives. While we absolutely welcome donations in support of specific teams or dogs, general donations help keep costs down for everyone, including future clients. Our day to day operations, training of dogs, client support and foster support all are costs we must cover. None of our programs would be possible without our dedicated team or your financial support.
Your support helps make someone's world larger; thank you!
Program Dog Support
Our program dogs grant us the opportunity to match handlers with dogs who already have a great deal of training. For some handlers, the extensive, sometimes lengthy training process is not feasible or desirable; others would prefer to have a professional trainer evaluate their dog and then build many of that dog's skills to ensure that they are as robust as possible.
At Medi-Dogs, program dogs typically come from local shelters before we bring them to our facility for training and eventual placement. By only offering our program dogs as started dogs rather than fully trained dogs, we are able to keep some costs down. However, the process of maintaining our dogs' health and quality of life while ensuring that they receive exceptional professional training is unavoidably expensive.
Donations to our program dogs offset these expenses, allowing us to offer started dogs at much reduced cost to potential handlers.
Support a Team
We also welcome donations in support of individual teams. Your support may go toward the cost of ongoing training, or may reduce the cost of a started program dog. Donations made here go directly to these teams and are not able to be used for our general operating costs.
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Our newsletter shares monthly updates about our program. We share training wins, education on service dogs, and so much more!
Our first recipient of the Louie's Legacy Scholarship:
June 2025
Ope & Toby
We’re beyond thrilled to introduce the very first recipient of Louie’s Legacy: Toby, an extraordinary 11-year-old with a heart as big as his smile.
After being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at just 10 years old, life changed in an instant. Managing this condition is a 24/7 responsibility—especially for a child—but Toby faces it all with courage and determination.
Now, with the help of a very special dog named Ope, Toby is reclaiming some of the freedom every child deserves.
Ope, a rescue from the local humane society, is in the final stages of his diabetic alert dog training and will officially be placed with Toby on June 11th!
This life-changing partnership was made possible by your donations as training were fully funded.
Thank you for helping us carry on Louie’s legacy by changing lives—one team at a time. 💙