The charity has distributed more than £125,000 in grants.

The Thin Blue Paw Foundation has announced that it has paid out more than £125,000 to provide veterinary care for working and retired police and prison dogs.

Founded in 2020, the charity has paid for life-saving surgeries, preventative therapies and treatments, and medication, helping to provide necessary care that owners may not always have been able to afford themselves. It now has more than 300 registered dogs.

One dog the charity has recently helped is Max, a Belgian Malinois who worked for the Ministry of Defence Police at HMNB Devonport in Plymouth, Devon. After retiring in September 2022, the five-year-old required treatment for arthritis and damage to his legs.

Natalie, his owner and former handler, said: “Max has regular hydrotherapy sessions which is really helping, and the Thin Blue Paw Foundation has kindly funded a course of these sessions. My finances have taken a knock recently and things have been difficult so this has been a huge help.”

Marking the milestone, Kieran Stanbridge, founder and trustee of the charity, said: “There are wide areas across the UK where there is no support in place for these canine heroes once they leave work. This means that the financial responsibility falls to their new owners – often their previous handler – and could bring with it large veterinary bills.
 
“It’s incredibly difficult to get insurance for ex-working dogs and they often retire with significant health problems and degenerative conditions due to their strenuous working lives; many of these can be incredibly expensive to treat and manage. This can be a significant burden for their owners who want to give them the best quality of life but may also be struggling financially, particularly given the current cost of living crisis.

“We wanted to ensure that no dogs or owners would find themselves struggling because they fell into an area without any help so we launched the Thin Blue Paw Foundation which would offer support to retired police and prison dogs across the UK.”

Image (C) The Thin Blue Paw Foundation