COOPERSBURG, Pa. – Service dogs save lives, and a Lehigh Valley woman who’s dedicated her life to making sure veterans and first responders get the life-saving partnership they deserve is one of our Lehigh Valley Heroes.<\/p>\n
Heather Lloyd has been caring for animals ever since she can remember, raised on a farm in Quakertown.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy best friend was a duck and then I had a pony and then I had chickens,\u201d Lloyd says.<\/p>\n
She carried that love with her as she pursued a career as a physician\u2019s assistant.<\/p>\n
And after the birth of her two boys, she left medicine and went back to her first love- opening a pet business in Coopersburg.<\/p>\n
16 years later, she says a chance encounter with a veteran and his dog at a homeless shelter would be the beginning of a new venture.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came here every day to learn everything there was to make that dog be his best friend, to be publicly accessible, non-soliciting, non-disrupting- the way a service dog should be,\u201d explains Lloyd.<\/p>\n
That’s when Tails of Valor was born. A nonprofit that trains service dogs and pairs them with veterans and first responders.<\/p>\n
Falling in love is easy around here. but it’s more than just puppy love- it’s the kind of love that can save your life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did lose my purpose because law enforcement is what I knew. I was good at it. I thrived at it so when that gets taken away and you don’t know which end is up- you lose your purpose,\u201d says Whitehall Police Officer Jason Mertz.<\/p>\n
On September 9th, 2017, Mertz was shot in the line of duty with a shotgun from just 10 feet away. It almost killed him and survival was a struggle.<\/p>\n
It was a long road to recovery and 6 years later, on the anniversary of the day he was shot, he says his family convinced him to visit Tails of Valor. He put in an application for a service dog that same day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re thick as thieves. I mean I tell her all my deepest, darkest secrets because I know they can’t get out. But I mean she goes everywhere with me,\u201d Mertz says of his service dog Holland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not a cure but it’s a non-medicinal way to help me mitigate the troubles that I have in life and it’s phenomenal,\u201d Mertz explains.<\/p>\n
Since the beginning, 75 dogs have graduated from Tails of Valor. That’s 75 chances for a new lease on life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough the eyes of unconditional love of the dog- unconditional love,\u201d Lloyd says, tearing up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COOPERSBURG, Pa. – Service dogs save lives, and a Lehigh Valley woman who’s dedicated her life to making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,62278,13068,157,47,6725,40672,19656,62279,2349],"class_list":["post-134894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-animal-training","tag-first-responders","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-mental-health","tag-nonprofit","tag-recovery","tag-service-dogs","tag-tails-of-valor","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}