Sophie’s Fund

What is it

Sophie’s Fund is a dedicated financial aid and grant program offered to cover the cost of training, medical care and overall care of placed or soon to be placed service dogs.

This program is offered to our clients in need of any amount to facilitate the ongoing health and welfare of their service dog. Resources from this program are also available in life threatening instances where medical procedures are required for the survivability of puppies who are entering our training program.

How it Started

This financial aid resource was named for our Founder’s Aunt, Sophia Angel, because of her compassion and intense love of dogs. Sophie as she was known, was someone who saw the good in everyone and everything, she was always smiling despite her own personal challenges and living with cerebral palsy. She loved dogs and all animals, which is why this program in addition to its first beneficiary, bare her name.

This program came about by pure coincidence when our team was contacted by a breeder who was set to provide us with a six week old puppy who would enter our training program. This particular puppy was suffering from a severe intestinal intussusception and would require a lengthy and costly surgery. The breeder was lacking the financial resources and had decided to euthanize the puppy, given that they could not live without this operation. When our team heard of this, our Founder couldn’t allow this dog to be put down and we covered the cost of the surgery. Upon visiting with this sick and resilient puppy, a name for her was immediately apparent. Her name would be Sophie, because despite being in pain she exemplified the same resilience with a smile that our Founder, saw in his Aunt.

Sophie the puppy stayed with our Founder during her recovery of six weeks and at 12 weeks of age was enrolled in our psychiatric service training program for 10 months. Upon completion of her training, she graduated and was placed into her FURever home in late January, 2021.

To date, resources from Sophie’s fund has saved the lives of two puppies who are now at least a year old and thriving in their FURever homes. Cash was the most recent puppy who’s life was saved by this program following diagnosis of an intestinal intussusception and obstructed colon. Due to the severity of her condition she has been adopted by our Founder and Executive Director as his service dog. Cash graduated the program in January, 2022 following her 1st birthday on Christmas Day, 2021. She will continue to learn new skills through our PTSD Assistance Program which is currently under development and is expected to graduate in late 2022 or early 2023.

How do I apply

If you or someone you know could benefit from this program please email us at finance@beyondabuddy.org with “Sophie’s Fund Request” in the subject line and we will respond within 48 hours. If this is a life threatening emergency to a puppy or dog, please begin the email subject line with “URGENT”.