LIVE OAK, Fla. — When he got out of the military and was looking for a way to help people, Scott Jones looked to the one thing he knew best: dogs.

Around dogs his entire life, Jones decided training service dogs was the logical direction for him.

“I wanted to give back and help save lives as opposed to take them,” Jones said of the decision to become a trainer after leaving the military.

It was a natural move for Jones, whose father was a kennel master at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and whose mother showed dogs professionally before entering the military.

“That is my passion,” he said. “I’ve always been around dogs, I’ve always been around animals in general.

“I struggled more with bookwork than with reading animals and getting them to understand what it is we want from them.”

Using his lifelong passion and his training, two years ago Jones and Leilani KinChoy launched their non-profit Canine Services Training Center, which relocated from the Hinesville and Ft. Stewart, Georgia, area to Live Oak earlier this year.

The organization’s goal is to help provide veterans and first responders who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and others that could benefit from a service dog, with a dog at no cost to them.

That desire came when Jones, who was already training dogs in Georgia, saw some of the prices other trainers were charging.

“We were looking at this that if I have this disability, that’s nothing something I can afford,” he said. “Some of these dogs are $10-40,000 and that’s outrageous to me.

“We wanted to offer that and to offer it to these individuals for free.”

He decided to take a different approach.

Rather than make people pay for him to come to them to conduct the training — the entire, three-step process takes an average of four months — Jones hopes eventually his non-profit can bring people to them, house them, pair them with a dog, and provide training for them and the dogs for free.

“We want to send them home as a fully trained unit that can help them get back into life,” Jones said.

To further that mission, Jones and Karen Bass, the Chief Financial Officer for CSTC, said they are looking to purchase property in Lee close to the Suwannee Valley Humane Society that already has buildings on site that would make it easier to house the animals during trainings. If they acquire that property, Jones also said they would provide kennel services as well.

Until then, Jones and KinChoy, the organization’s CEO and also his wife, conduct the trainings at their house.

“I’ve always liked dogs,” KinChoy said, adding she didn’t start training dogs until she met Jones. “He told me I was a natural and that was the end of it.”

There is an obstacle course set up in the yard and they also work on basic obedience and Canine Good Citizen trainings there. CGC training includes 10 tasks that show the trainability, serviceability and public access for dogs.

The final step of training is environmental training. During that portion, Jones said they will take the dogs on field trips to Walmart or the Tractor Supply Company. They’ll take the dogs out to dinner and, if possible, to an airport.

They want the dogs ready and able to go to any location where their future owner may need them to go.