About
This is the space to introduce visitors to the business or brand. Briefly explain who's behind it, what it does and what makes it unique.
This is the space to introduce visitors to the business or brand. Briefly explain who's behind it, what it does and what makes it unique. Share its core values and what this site has to offer.
Freedom Fidos didn’t begin with a business plan. It grew over years of dogs, veterans, rescue work, friendship, family, and seeing firsthand just how powerful the right connection can be.
When Jess and Matt met, Jess was transitioning from her work as a Certified Veterinary Technician at Heritage Pet Hospital into coordinating and training therapy dogs at Mayo Clinic. As she learned more about the human-animal bond through research and firsthand observation, she came home constantly telling Matt stories about what she witnessed.
Sometimes it was something seemingly small—a patient smiling when a fluffy dog walked into the room. Other times, it was remarkable. A patient agreeing to take medication because the dog was watching. Someone getting out of bed because there was a dog waiting for them. Patients participating in rehabilitation because a dog walked beside them. Changes in mood, energy, and even blood pressure simply because a dog was present.
Jess became fascinated by something dogs seem to understand naturally: sometimes helping a person doesn’t require saying anything at all.
Matt understood another side of that connection.
A combat veteran who served in the Army National Guard of South Dakota. Matt had not fully explored some of the ways those experiences continued to affect him after coming home. Matt and members of his platoon attended a reunion through Reuniting After War. Reconnecting with the people he had served alongside reinforced something incredibly important—the value of simply being around others who understand.
Veterans don’t need anything fancy. Sometimes they need a place to belong and people who understand where they’ve been without requiring an explanation. They need opportunities to talk about their experiences naturally—or not talk about them at all.
And sometimes, they need a dog.
Not every veteran needs a highly trained service dog. Some simply want a good dog beside them—a dog that can comfortably walk through the community, hang out when friends come over, lean against them on a difficult day, make them laugh, offer affection, and simply be there without judgment. Other veterans do need the specialized assistance of a task-trained service dog.
Over time, Jess and Matt began asking a question that would eventually become central to Freedom Fidos:
What if there were a dog program built to meet veterans wherever they actually are?
Then Rescue Added Another Piece
As Jess became more involved in professional dog training, behavior, rescue, and service-dog work, she met Nicole because of a fearful dog.
Nicole was looking for help for her own dog and was determined to help him without using fear, pain, or averse training methods. What began as a trainer-client relationship quickly became something much bigger.
Jess and Nicole discovered that they shared not only a passion for force-free, fear-free training, but an entire philosophy about dogs and rescue.
They agreed on rescue standards, decompression, behavioral assessment, client education, and the importance of looking beyond what a dog is doing to understand why the behavior is happening. They shared a fascination with nature versus nurture and how genetics, early development, environment, learning history, and individual experiences combine to create the dog standing in front of you.
Most importantly, they agreed that successful rescue couldn’t simply be measured by how many dogs were pulled from difficult situations or how quickly they were adopted.
Rescue is about breaking the cycle of re homing just as much as it is about getting dogs off the streets.
That shared philosophy led Jess and Nicole to develop Forever Fido's.
Through Forever Fido, rescue, behavior, training, and adopter support became interconnected. Together, they have successfully placed [X DOGS] and provided more than [X HOURS] of free training and behavioral support to help dogs remain successfully in their homes.
The experience reinforced something they believed deeply: sometimes saving a dog requires more than finding an adopter.
It requires thoughtful matching. It requires decompression. It requires realistic expectations and understanding behavior. And sometimes it means continuing to support the person on the other end of the leash long after the adoption paperwork has been signed.
Jess and Nicole continued studying behavior, evaluating dogs, working with rescue partners, and learning from every dog and family they encountered. They especially enjoyed exploring the relationship between nature and nurture while remaining committed to humane, evidence-informed, force- and fear-free training.
Somewhere along the way, Nicole stopped fitting neatly into the categories of client, employee, or rescue partner.
She became family.
You might find Nicole evaluating dogs, helping with rescue, brainstorming programs, driving somewhere for the latest project, or motivating Jess to turn another idea into reality. But you’re just as likely to find her taking the Smidt kids birthday shopping, supporting the family, and reminding Jess and Matt that work-life balance is apparently something they’re supposed to have.
Years of working together taught Jess and Nicole what they wanted to carry forward—and what they believed could be done differently.
And the Pieces Started Coming Together
Jess had spent years witnessing and studying the power of the human-animal bond.
Matt understood firsthand the importance of veteran connection, community, and having people around you who simply understand.
Jess and Nicole had spent years learning how thoughtful rescue, humane training, behavioral support, careful assessment, and good matching could give both dogs and people a better chance of succeeding together.
Eventually, the question became:
What if we brought all of it together?
Could we help veterans train the dogs already sleeping on their couches?
Could carefully evaluated rescue dogs with the right temperament and potential be matched with veterans looking for companionship?
Could we develop and train service dogs for veterans who need more specialized assistance?
Could we provide continued training and behavioral support instead of simply handing someone a dog?
And could we build a community around all of it—a place where veterans could train dogs together, take field trips, talk, laugh, support one another, or simply spend time around people who understand?
The answer became Freedom Fidos.
Building Bonds Beyond Service
Freedom Fidos wasn’t created because we thought the world needed another dog program.
It grew out of our own lives.
Years of veterinary medicine, therapy-dog work, professional training, rescue, behavior, military service, marriage, friendship, family, successes, mistakes, and a lot of dogs taught us that there shouldn’t be only one path to experiencing the benefits of the human-animal bond.
Different veterans need different things.
Different dogs need different jobs.
Sometimes that means a highly trained service dog.
Sometimes it means transforming the dog already living in a veteran’s home into a well-mannered companion who can participate more fully in life.
Sometimes it means carefully matching a veteran with a rescue dog who needs someone just as much as that person needs them.
And sometimes the dog is what gets someone through the door—only for them to discover a community waiting on the other side.
Our goal isn’t simply to give veterans dogs.
Our goal is to create relationships that make life bigger—for the veteran, for the dog, and for the community surrounding them.
That is Freedom Fidos.
Building Bonds Beyond Service.
Our Story
Our Vision
Building Bonds Beyond Service
We envision a world where every Veteran finds renewed independence, deeper belonging, and lasting hope through the restorative human-animal bond.
Meet the Team
Matthew Smidt | Co-Founder Veteran Community Director
Matt is a combat veteran served in Iraq with the National Guard of South Dakota. His experiences after returning home helped shape one of Freedom Fidos’ core beliefs: veteran support doesn’t always have to feel like treatment. Sometimes it starts with connection.
Matt helps ensure Freedom Fidos remains grounded in what veterans actually want and need—authentic relationships, opportunities to connect with other veterans, and dogs that complement their lives rather than asking veterans to fit into a predetermined program.
His vision is for Freedom Fidos to become more than a dog-training organization. It’s a community where veterans can show up as themselves, work alongside their dogs and build relationships with people who understand where they’ve been.
Jessica Smidt | Co-Founder Training Director
Jess brings together a background in veterinary medicine, animal-assisted therapy, professional dog training, behavior and rescue. A former Certified Veterinary Technician, she later coordinated and trained therapy dogs at Mayo Clinic, where she saw firsthand the impact the human-animal bond can have on people’s physical and emotional well-being.
Today, Jess’s passion is understanding the dog in front of her—how genetics, environment, learning history and individual experiences come together to shape behavior. She believes good training should strengthen the relationship between dogs and people without relying on fear, pain or intimidation.
That philosophy ultimately became an important part of both Forever Fidos and Freedom Fidos.
Nicole Stundzia | Co-Founder Rescue & Program Support
Nicole and Jess connected over a shared commitment to force-free dog training. What started as a trainer-client bond blossomed into a partnership built on a mutual philosophy: that rescue is about more than just placement—it is about behavioral support, education, and breaking the cycle of rehoming through deep understanding of dog psychology.
This synergy birthed Forever Fidos, where they have successfully placed numerous dogs while providing extensive free training and behavioral guidance. They believe that true success in rescue requires long-term commitment, realistic expectations, and professional decompression for the animals. Their collaborative work focuses on the complex interplay of genetics and environment, ensuring every dog is set up for success.
Nicole has since transitioned from a collaborator to an integral part of the Smidt family. Whether she is evaluating rescue candidates, developing new programs, or supporting the family in their daily lives, she is a cornerstone of the team. The expertise and compassion developed through their work together at Forever Fidos now serves as the vital foundation for Freedom Fidos, bringing specialized support to the veteran community.