I'm Brandon Butler.

I'm the CEO of Retrieve and Freedom.

Retrieving Freedom was found in 2012 with our first service dogs placed in 2013.

We have placed 152 dogs, about 5050 with veterans and children with autism.

Between our two facilities, we have about 80 dogs at some level of training.

Currently, these dogs have tens of thousands of dollars worth of training, and that is covered by generous donors and supporters of retrieving freedom.

There's absolutely no cost to the veteran or the family for these service dogs.

So we have our own breeding program and we work specifically with Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers.

We like to breed our own puppies so we can control the quality of the dogs that have shown genetic histories of being susceptible to success in service dog work.

My name is Ashley Snyder and I am the program coordinator for Driving Freedom.

So our puppies start in the program right at eight weeks old.

In that time, they're in stage one between eight weeks old and about one year of age, and they will be learning their obedience, their home manners.

But the biggest emphasis is on their public exposure.

Getting them out to see the world is very important to prepare our dogs for everything they might see in the world before they are charged with working in that environment.

The handler, the client learns how to handle the dogs and the dogs will work on matching them to that handler.

So we usually start off with a dog who's actually already pre matched with someone else, and they help teach them how to learn how to drive the car with the easy to drive car, right?

So they learn their handling skills on that dog.

And then once they are ready, we'll start introducing the different dogs in the program that they might be matched with.

So our fosters usually come to us from events, from the community.

What they do is they'll come to us to submit an application.

We will go over our manuals with them just to kind of teach them what we are about, what we do, how we work with our puppies.

From there, we'll do a couple of training sessions.

The first one is just an intro to learn how to handle the dogs, and then the second one is to learn how to take them out in public and apply those skills.

The role of a foster is incredibly important in the success of .. and I know a lot of people hear that and they're like, I could never do that.

My dog would turn out unruly as my dog's at home.

It's a guided process.

We give that support, we help them out.

We want their success as much as they want that success.

It's a highly rewarding thing to do for the organization, a highly rewarding way to get back to the to the world and to the community.

I actually started out as a puppy raiser myself.

I was looking for opportunities to figure out what I wanted to do in life, and this opportunity fell into my lap to raise a service dog puppy.

And through that experience I found a love for training, a love for working with dogs, and a love for giving back to the world.

In that way, our puppy raisers are our most needed role in the organization right now.

For anyone who wants to give their time to help support our mission of training lives of veterans and children with autism.

Hi, my name is Mike Ross and I was in the Army.

I spent eight years there.

My experience with retrieving freedom was awesome.

The people here are great.

You could tell that they really have a heart for the veterans.

They they go out of their way to make you comfortable.

Everybody I meet, I tell them about it.

And people are just blown away with this dog.

This is a service dog.

There's too many people out there that can go online and buy a vest and get a license and they go in places and it gives a bad reputation for service dogs.

And the thing is, you know, this place this place puts out service dogs.

They're great.

Then my life is so much better since I've had Dusty, you know, he's he's always there for me.

He always checks on me.

He's always make sure I'm okay.

In the morning, he crashes on my chest at nighttime, he's right here.

And we sit and we hold each other and we talk.

You know, you know, fit her into this equation, too, you know?

But if you are a veteran, then you're out there, man.

Don't wait.

What do you got to lose when you're down and it's getting dark?

You know, there's some light.

The way it's impacted me is I used to have that scene in the back of my mind.

If something happened to my wife, what do I do?

I used to worry, you know, used to be there.

And since I've got him, Dusty has 39 commands.

He can open doors, he can pick up credit card off of the floor.

You know, he can brace.

When I go to get up, he pulls me in my wheelchair.

He's basically trained himself to pick up my laundry and go put it in a laundry basket.

So I think I'm pretty cool with that.

You know, they could only cook me dinner there.

And he's he's extremely helpful.

He's my buddy.

I've had him for two years and we have really started bonding here this last year and a half and is just going stronger.

And he's to the point where he's starting to know what I need before I say it, a dog ain't going to replace God.

But I'll tell you what, he made them and he sent them for us, you know, So I would say, jump on it, let's get it done, you know, And they're great dogs.

They're fantastic dogs.

He'll fall in love with them.

So we service veterans and children from across the country if they feel retrieving freedom is the organization they want to work with for their service dog, we welcome applicants from across the country.

They'll just have to be able to afford to come to Missouri or Iowa fo..

So anybody that meets that criteria can go on the retrieving Freedom website and simply retrieving Freedom Dawg, and fill out the application process.

I'm personally not a veteran.

This is my mission.

This is my opportunity to give back to our veterans and hope that they can live a more quality life for the rest of their years.