08/28/2026
Every service dog in training and every client has their own journey. Some feel a bond even before a match, while others have quieter beginnings, waiting for the right moment for that connection to become clear. There is no one way for a partnership to begin. Some connections happen right away, while others take time to grow. Sometimes, you don't even realize a bond is forming until one small moment makes it clear, and that is exactly what happened between Matt and Sparky.
Before we can talk about Matt & Sparky's story, we need to go back to the beginning of Matt's journey as a veteran. Back to 2001. A year that began like any other. A high school senior looking toward the future, not knowing just how much the world around him was about to change.
After the attacks of 9/11, Matt knew he wanted to serve. Still a senior in high school, he enlisted in the delayed entry program a month later, and in 2002, he joined the Army. The years that followed took him on a deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. Along the way, Matt was injured multiple times, experiences that would stay with him long after he came home. But life continued to move forward. Right after getting out in 2007, Matt met his wife, and four years later, they were married. Together, they built a family and welcomed two boys, Lincoln and Jackson.
Yet even as his life was moving forward, Matt was still struggling with the invisible wounds he carried home.
Then in 2024, he attended a veterans retreat where he met other veterans who had service dogs. He listened as they talked about their dogs and the ways those partnerships had changed their lives. Their stories stayed with him.
It wasn't entirely new to Matt. A few months earlier, his wife had attended a spouses retreat, where she heard veteran spouses share how service dogs had changed their spouses' lives. Now, after hearing those stories himself, Matt began to wonder if a service dog might be something that could help him too. When he returned home from the retreat, he talked with his wife. He was apprehensive and unsure, but he was willing to give it a try. With her encouragement, Matt decided to apply for a service dog.
In March of 2025, he applied to Fidos For Freedom and nine other ADI-accredited organizations. Fidos was the closest to him and one of the first organizations to respond. And that... that was where Matt's journey with Fidos began.
Very soon, a 2½-year-old black Labrador Retriever named Sparky would become part of that story…
Project 2 Heal
