Annual K9 Elite Veterans Banquet set for November 8

“Saving lives one dog at a time” is the motto of the local veteran service organization K9 Elite, which raises specially trained service dogs for veterans suffering from the mental health effects of service to their country.

In an effort to provide the service dogs free of charge to veterans unable to afford them, K9 Elite owner and trainer Wes Mangus of Lovell holds annual fundraising  banquets to raise money for the specialty dogs. The next banquet is coming up in two weeks.

The fourth annual K9 Elite Veterans Banquet will be held Saturday, Nov. 8, at the Heart Mountain Building at the Park County Fairgrounds in Powell. The event includes silent and live auctions, games, a cash bar, guest speaker and a five-course dinner catered by Northwest College.

Tickets are $50 each, and a sponsor’s table is $500. Money raised at each annual event pays for the following year’s dogs provided for veterans and first responders who need them, Mangus said.

Mangus works closely with Sacred Mountain Retreat in Deadwood, South Dakota, and Downrange Warriors in Cody to find veterans in need suffering from PTSD, anxiety, suicidal thoughts or other mental health issues.

“I have the dogs and the ability to do the training and all that stuff, and they have the veterans, so we kind of just work together,” Mangus said. “They have the connections with the folks that need this, that need a dog, because the veterans and first responders will come through their programs, and that gives them, Downrange and Sacred Mountain, a vision of who could benefit from a dog.

“And we kind of just bounce things back and forth with each other and then we’re able to sit down, have a meeting with them. If they say, ‘Hey, this person could really benefit from a dog,’ then we’ll sit down and hash all the details out. And then if we feel it’s a good fit, we’ll elect them as a recipient, basically. And then the dog, the training, all the supplies, the certifications, all that stuff, which is about a two-year ordeal, is all paid for. And so that fundraiser is what covers those costs.”

Mangus, who also owns and operates Trieven-Sungold Kennels at his place north of town, said each dog receives about half an hour of training every day for about a year once they return from an acclimation period with a particular veteran.

He said he trains four to six service dogs during a given training period, and right now he has 14 dogs on site, though only seven are service dogs.

“It kind of goes in rotation. So the dogs we gave away last year, donated last year, I don’t get them in for training till this year,” he said. “I’ve always got some coming that are at different stages. We’ll donate a puppy, and I won’t get him back for training till they’re, like, eight or 10 months old.”

Puppy is the first step

The first step for a service dog is getting to know his veteran, so long before being trained, the dog is simply raised by the veteran.

“The key to the PTSD, anxiety, mental type stuff is the dog just absorbing and bonding with that person for the first six or eight months,” Mangus said. “Dogs are very routine, habitual animals. And so when a veteran is having two or three good days, things are good, and then they have a really bad day, that dog is picking up on that change of behavior.

“So whether the veteran gets really quiet or they get very angry, their voice changes, their motor skills change. A dog is picking up on that change, and so that dog will naturally pick up on a lot of those things early. And then I’ll get them in for two to four months of certified training, which basically is passing the community access test, and then I’ll get them back to that veteran.”

The community access test is a key part of a service dog’s training, Mangus noted, so that the dogs can be trained and trusted to be with the veteran in all situations.

“Every dog starts with the community access test. So that’s usually a couple months. They’ve got to be able to be 100% spot on in the community. So we take them to the stores, we take them to restaurants. They’ve got to have their off-leash obedience spot on. And then they have to be able to, if we go to a restaurant, lie there for a couple hours until we’re done without getting up, those kinds of things.”

There is also training to allow a dog to fly commercially with a veteran, Mangus noted.

Training for the community access test takes about two months, Mangus said, and then more specialized training begins, tuned to the specific veteran the dog is serving.

“It’ll be any specifics per that specific veteran, whether it’s deep pressure therapy or it’s mobility assistance or picking up items that they drop, or opening handicap doors, pushing those buttons, anything specific that will make the day-to-day life of that person better,” Mangus said. “That’s kind of the main goal, because, if you can start benefiting that individual on a small scale, that compounds and compounds and compounds, and then their life just slowly starts to get better, and it kind of pulls them out of the hole, and so it’s really a good thing.

“You know, the dog is just a tool to benefit that everyday life, basically.”

Mangus has been training service dogs through K9 Elite for six years, he said, and for the first two years, all service dogs had to be paid for. And then Mangus thought of the fundraiser.

“I just thought, ‘Why are these people that serve our country and our towns and cities, and first responders and stuff, the folks that really need and can benefit from a service dog but usually can’t afford them, why are they paying for these (dogs)?’ So I thought, ‘Well, let’s do an event, and whatever we can raise in November, will take us through the next year, and then we’ll do another one next year. Whatever is raised is how many dogs I can do that following year, so they don’t have to pay for anything.”

Mangus figures he’s trained more than 100 dogs in six years, including dogs for those who can afford them, adding, “I think we did 30 some last year, total.”

The event

Doors at the Heart Mountain Building will open at 4 p.m., Mangus said, at which time the cash bar and silent auction will begin, and games will be played. The five-course dinner begins at 5:30, catered by Northwest College.

“The first hour and a half, guys can come play games. It’s very similar to, like, a Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation banquet or a mule deer banquet. You go around and play games to win stuff,” Mangus said.

The dinner will be followed around 6:30 p.m. by guest speaker Matt King of Riverton, who received a dog some two years ago, Mangus said. The presentation of three puppies to veterans will follow King’s address, and the live auction will round out the evening.

As of Tuesday, there were about 50 tickets left for the banquet, and tickets may be obtained by calling Mangus at 307-272-0453 or wife Kaycie at 307-272-8405.

Mangus said he is grateful to everyone who supports the banquet and auction.

“I just want to emphasize that none of this would happen without the support of the people, because that’s what pays for everything,” he said. “Businesses play a large role. They donate items, and a lot of them will sponsor guns for the auction and sponsor different things. We couldn’t do it without them. It would not even physically be here.”

He also noted the great contributions of wife Kaycie.

“She does a lot of it, a lot of the pre-game stuff, calling businesses, getting items,” Mangus said. “She’ll put in 500 hours. We start this in about April. It takes six months to put this thing on.”