OHIO — Dogs have been helping humans for years from detecting allergies to seeing-eye dogs.

What You Need To Know

  • An Ohio nonprofit is raising money to gift service dogs to veterans in need 

  • You can help raise money to purchase the service dog through the organizations virtual 5K

  • The group wants to help bring down the number of veteran suicides

Now, a nonprofit in Northeast Ohio is trying to pair service dogs with military veterans in need. 

The organization is called 'Animal Out' and they are working to raise money to purchase a service dog for a veteran in need. 

The founder/president of Animal Out, Angela Smith, started this nonprofit in honor of her cousin, Jeremy Kinker, a military veteran who took his life in 2019. 

"He became a statistic that he tried really hard to help bring down," Smith said. "The 22 a day vet suicide rate."

Smith wants to give the service dogs to other veterans who are fighting similar battles.  

“To get them out of the house, to get them engaged, to get them knowing that they matter — even if it's only that they think they matter to a dog," Smith said. 

She said the nonprofit was named after her cousin, whose nickname in the military was "Animal." 

"He always said 'animal out' on all of his Facebook posts," Smith said. "We decided to name the cause 'animal out' after Jeremy.” 

Smith believes her cousin's service dog helped him during his times of depression.

“These (dogs) get my cousin from laying on a floor all day doing nothing, not even eating. (The dogs) get them thinking, well, this dog is dependent on me, something is dependent on me and I got to take this dog out,” Smith said. 

Animal out will be hosting a virtual 5K to help raise money for their cause.

You can sign up on their website, here.

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