Nonprofit aims to help defer costs of service dogs

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Together Journey, a new nonprofit venture, has been started to help defer the costs of service dogs.

The cost of a service dog nationwide is between $10,000 and $20,000. This cost typically is not feasible for people with disabilities who already struggle with working.

Katie Costello, co-owner of The Learning Dog Training and Enrichment Center, is doing all of the training for the service dogs. The dogs are rescue or shelter dogs that she uses for training. She is piloting a training program with Animal Charity of Youngstown, where volunteers will begin to train some of the shelter dogs for service dogs, while the others that don’t make the cut stand a much better chance at adoption.

The cost of training through The Together Journey/The Learning Dog will be between $5,000 and $7,000. The Together Journey will be working on fundraisers and donations to defer the cost for these dogs. They are dedicated to paying for all but $900. They will do this expecting the person receiving the service dog to pay it forward by helping with fundraisers and some of the training with future dogs.

The Together Journey is seeking donations, fundraising ideas and volunteers to raise and train the dogs that will be going to a disabled person. All training for volunteers will be free of charge.

Anyone willing to help can contact Katie Costello at 330-502-8552 or Lorri Matey at 440-336-4169.