‘Saving lives one dog at a time’

K9 Elite program, fundraiser continues to grow

An organization dedicated to providing free service dogs to veterans and first responders who are struggling will hold its fifth annual fundraising banquet November 7 in Powell.

K9 Elite, led by Wes and Kaycie Mangus of Lovell, has been training and providing service dogs for eight years under the motto “Saving lives one dog at a time.”

Trainer Wes Mangus said he started training hunting dogs through his company Trieven-Sungold Kennel some 11 years ago, adding service dogs three years after that. He organized the K9 Elite Foundation five years ago and started holding a fundraising banquet. And for the first time, Mangus now has his own non-profit company.

“K9 Elite is now, as of this year, a local nonprofit,” he said. “We are a 501c3 (corporation) now. We’re a foundation that raises money and provides service dogs through Trieven Kennels. K9 Elite is the financial foundation of that, and they raise money to provide fully trained service dogs for veterans and first responders in need, focused mostly on PTSD, anxiety and depression. We’ve done some epilepsy service dogs, different things like that for detection, but mostly the brain type stuff, and it’s totally free. 

“We pay for the dogs, we pay for the training, we pay for the vests, the certifications, the leashes – everything.

The training

Training service dogs is about a two-year process, Mangus said.

“My program is very untraditional,” he said. “Most programs foster the dog for a year, get the socialization done for a year and then introduce them to the veteran. Well, you lost out on that entire year of bonding with that veteran, and so I put young puppies or young dogs in the hands of veterans. They will bond with them, and if they’re comfortable, start some of the basic stuff.”

A veteran will usually work with Mangus a couple times a month, he said, working on puppy programs to get them started. The veteran will keep the dog until the dog is eight to 10 months old.

“What happens is that the puppy is naturally going to pick up on that person’s traits and habits, all of the mental type stuff, and if there are certain things the veteran or first responder does that create anxiety, depression and those kind of things, the dog is going to pick up on a lot of that stuff naturally,” Mangus said. “I can’t recreate anything with the brain, but I can recreate and train anything that’s a physical feature like obedience and picking things off the ground and mobility issues and things like that.

“That’s one of the most crucial times, when that puppy is two months to 10 months of age. They’re with that person, and then they come back to me for 30, 60, 90, 120 days – up to  four months, roughly. It just depends on what they need, and that’s where we go through all of the community access tests, the certification training, all the obedience training on and off the leash, and then we’ll go ahead and get them certified as a team so that they can legally go anywhere they need to go in public.”

The goal is to get the dog back to the veteran, Mangus said.

“I don’t like to keep them a lot longer than that, because if they’re with me, they’re not helping the veteran,” he said. “So we do that for a year and a half or 15 months, and then the second year is fine tuning all of the handling and the process and doing anything more specific in training like mobility issues, helping them up and down stairs. Some people fall a lot, so we teach the dog to come over and help pick them up.

“We do wheelchair stuff, anything specific, because once you get the dog past 12 to 14 months, they have the maturity to be able to handle that. It’s a two-year process from start to finish, but it’s a lot of back and forth.”

Mangus said he recently sent a dog home for a month that wasn’t gaining much at his facility due to maturity, adding, “Nothing is cookie cutter. Every situation is different.”

Mangus said he mostly hears about a veteran or first responder who could use a dog through word of mouth or through organizations like Downrange Warriors or Eagle’s Wing Outreach, and the K9 Elite website has an application for the program.

He said most of his clients are in the region, from the Dakotas west, but he has had clients from Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. It’s easier for someone from the region to bring the dog to Mangus for training, he noted.

“All in all, I train about 100 service dogs a year,” Mangus said. “When I first bought the kennel, it was all hunting dogs, and now this is probably 80 percent of my business.”

The fundraiser

The annual K9 Elite Veterans Day banquet will be held Saturday, Nov. 7, at Heart Mountain Hall at the fairgrounds in Powell. Doors open at 4 p.m., and dinner will be served at 5:30. The evening will include both a live and a silent auction, a raffle, games, a cash bar and more. The guest speaker will be Dan Scott of the Greybull area, who acquired a dog from K9 Elite four years ago.

Mangus said all of the 320 tickets have been sold, and in fact, when ticket sales opened in July, 280 tickets were sold in the first 24 hours.

“I’m super excited,” he said. “I think this year is going to be a big year for us. Whatever we raise at this event basically pays for next year’s worth of dogs, which run anywhere from $5,000 to $12,000 (depending on needed training).

“Kaycie is my lifesaver of this event,” Mangus said. “She doesn’t do a lot with the hands-on training, but she helps me when the vets come to town. And this event? She pretty much makes it happen.”

Mangus said two men to be receiving dogs will be named and recognized  at the event, though their two dogs aren’t quite ready to be turned over to them yet. One will receive his dog in early December, the other in late December.