Kormotech-founded U-Hearts trains dogs to support veterans' rehabilitation

U-Hearts, the Ukrainian animal welfare platform set up by pet food manufacturer Kormotech, has launched a programme in which volunteers and their dogs support the rehabilitation of war veterans. The first ten handler-and-dog teams have begun training for Unbroken Animals in Lviv. They work at the city's Unbroken rehabilitation centre alongside therapists, who define the movements each patient needs to practise; the exercises with the dog are then built around them. According to U-Hearts, contact with the animals is intended to motivate patients to keep up exercises that are often painful.

The method was developed by Kateryna Bieliaieva, a senior inspector at the Kyiv Region Police Canine Centre, who has made more than 2,000 visits with dogs to hospitals and rehabilitation centres since 2019. The ten teams were selected from 124 applications. Dogs must be at least two years old, healthy, fully vaccinated and show no signs of aggression. Training takes around two months and combines theory with supervised sessions. If a dog shows signs of discomfort or overload, the team leaves the programme.

The pilot in Lviv runs until November; U-Hearts plans to recruit a further ten teams in Kyiv this autumn. The project is implemented by the NGO Pro Lviv with U-Hearts, Unbroken and the city of Lviv as part of the U-LEAD with Europe programme, which is supported by the EU and several member states, including Germany.

U-Hearts, known as Save Pets of Ukraine until last year, says it has helped around 300,000 animals since the start of the full-scale war, including distributing 2,400 tonnes of pet food.