I wish I could give them zero stars. Angel Service Dogs destroyed my family's finances and they feel absolutely no remorse about any of it. They are not only scammers, they are monsters. Please, if you are considering purchasing a service dog for yourself or your child, STAY AWAY FROM ANGEL SERVICE DOGS! At five years old, I was diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder called Tourette Syndrome. This causes a myriad of symptoms, one of the most debilitating being aggressive physical tics. After trying out a cocktail of various medications and therapies throughout my childhood and teenage years, my doctors, family, and myself all agreed on the next step to my treatment plan: Getting a service dog to assist with my disabilities. My service dog was meant to be trained for mobility and psychiatric tasks to help me become more independent and be able to go back to university. Angel Service Dogs matched me with a dog named Wags, a 45lbs black Australian "labradoodle" (AKA fancy mutt), which they originally claimed was actually about 70lbs. At only 45lbs, Wags was much too small to be trained for any of the mobility tasks I require without it being a safety hazard not only to myself, but to the dog as well. Not only was the dog physically unsuitable, he was also mentally unsound. In the short few days Wags came to my home, he tried to attack our other dog Abby twice, tried to attack my brother once, pulled me down the stairs once, and did not perform a single task. He also exhibited clear signs of food aggression, even jumping up on me while I was feeding him because Abby got too close for his taste when she was walking by us, and leaving long, ghastly bruises across my thigh from his fingernails. He pulled extensively on the leash, unable to perform any proper commands including basic loose leash walking. In addition to this, he arrived with a very severe ear infection and was clearly too sick to be working/training, but Sherry Mers, CEO and Director of Angel Service Dogs, insisted that he would be fine and that a proper service dog should be able to work under any condition. It is extremely unethical to force a sick dog to work. After multiple breakdowns and panic attacks over the few days that Wags was with us, and my family contemplating taking me to the emergency room, I forced Sherry to take Wags back. Despite them clearly and obviously breaking their end of the contract, in order for them to take their Cujo dog back, they forced me to send them a phrase from the contract that would imply I was cancelling the contract. I have not seen a dime of the $24,000 they stole from us. When a news reporter contacted them to discuss what happened, they instead directed the questions to their lawyers, being the cowards that they are. TL;DR: - Angel Service Dogs promised me a fully trained service dog. - Instead, they gave me an untrained, aggressive pet. - I forced them to take the pet back so as not to risk my family's safety. - I have not seen a dime of the $24,000 they stole from us. There is far more that I need to say, and far more details to my experience, but Yelp's character limit does not do this horrific story the justice it deserves. Read my full account of my experiences with Angel Service Dogs here: https://123thetruthwillsetmefree.wordpress.com/ read more

My son has life threatening food allergies. They are so severe that label reading isn't enough. When the doctor said we have less and less time to get him to the hospital in time to save his life we started researching allergy sniffing service dogs. We found Angel Service Dogs. Sherry Mers the owner of the company spoke with me on the phone several times and she explained why she has the best allergy dogs, she said that other companies couldn't train an allergy dog that would be safe around school children and a lot of other things like that - her daughter also has allergies so she knows all the right things to say to an allergy mom. So we signed a contract and raised $20,000 for a life saving service dog. Our family and friends worked so hard and sacrificed so much. When we went to the two week training (they call it graduation) we received our dog that we had heard so many wonderful things about "Frost, the Wonder Dog" and when we got her she was very amped up, pulling our arms off, lunging at other dogs and barking - Sherry assured us this was normal during the transition. The dog barked at anyone walking into a room, growled at my 7 year old daughter, was aggressive towards a doctor and we had to leave the office, we took her home took her to a vet who said she has aggression and anxiety and recommended that we take her to a behaviorist we took her to UC Davis Animal Behaviorist (from what I understand top in the world) and a team of them said she shouldn't be around children, she shouldn't be a service dog, and that she should only be in experienced dog handlers homes with no children, Sherry had been telling us that it was our fault the dog had issues and UC Davis said there was no way we could have caused a dog to have issues like that in 3 weeks time. We were devastated.. Sherry immediately blame us. Our friends and family who worked so hard for my son to have a longer life were devastated. Sherry and Brett Mers agreed to replace the dog. They sent out a very sweet but untrained dog, his prey drive is so high he shouldn't have made the cut as a service dog either and he is so stubborn he only detects allergens when he feels like it. After learning more about service dogs I learned that much more reputable companies do a much better job for more than half the cost. Do lots and lots of research before putting your family through the hell we have gone through. Almost 2 years later and we still don't have a functional service dog and my son is scared to eat new foods. We recently found out we weren't alone. http://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/05/14/service-dog-organization-accused-of-selling-untrained-dogs/ read more

My experience with Angel Service Dogs started out hopeful and exciting before quickly turning sour. I want to make sure others can learn from my experience before choosing to do business with this organization. I've always been interested in labradoodles and saw an ad on craigslist selling a male puppy for $900. The ad explained that puppies were bred for service dogs and once in a while they have a pet quality dog that doesn't make the cut. I emailed and said that I'd like to be informed if they had a female in the future. I got an email back from Sherry Mers telling me to call her for more information. My phone call to her was very positive and the next day my partner and I and his grandchildren went to her pet shop in Monument and saw the many puppies she had on site. She answered all my questions and when I said I was interested in puppy development, she suggested that I take one of the adult females and foster them while pregnant and with her help, raise the puppies till Angel Service Dogs took them for training. I thought that was fabulous idea and agreed to take Val. The next week we talked on the phone about the expectations. She said that I needed to send her a check for $500 for Val and that I could either have her after she had whelped her puppies or apply that money toward one of the puppies and Val could go back to a previous owner. A few weeks later I was ready to get Val but could not get Sherry to answer my phone calls or texts. I contacted another woman (Anne, to protect her privacy) to assist me. I had met Anne when I first met Sherry. She had a 4 week old litter for Sherry at the time. Anne was going to Colorado Springs that afternoon and offered to bring Val back with her. A few hours later I got a call from Sherry. She said she was sending Val with Anne and that she had an ear infection and asked if my check had cleared. I didn't know but told her I'd check. I also told her of the things she told me she would provide and asked her to include the contract. She asked if I would text all of that to her. When I got Val, she sent everything but the contract. Anne told me also that Sherry said Val "might" be pregnant or that she just "might" be chunky because of lack of exercise due to whoever was caring for her before. Things started feeling extremely shady for me when Sherry had not even checked on how Val was adjusting. For that matter she never even asked for references on me. I began my research on Angel Service Dogs and found terrible reviews including a CBS news story about Sherry selling unqualified service dogs and refusing to issue refunds. I reached out to Anne again and learned that she also did not have any type of contract for the dog she had for the organization. She just had a verbal agreement. I told Anne that I would not be following through with Val and Anne agreed to come and pick her up the next day. I stopped payment on my check. I called and texted Sherry that afternoon and asked that she contact me ASAP. She texted the next morning and said she had to go to 25 IEP meetings for children and that it was a busy month and that Anne could assess Val's ear infection. She did not mention my dissatisfaction and returning Val. I responded by saying that Val was going back with Anne that morning and I was very unhappy with her lack of communication, the research on the organization and her refusal to provide me with a contract. Sherry has not responded. I believe Sherry's lack of professionalism and disregard for me caring for a valuable breeding dog speaks volumes of her business practices. I would be extremely leery of taking a dog from Angel Service Dogs or engaging in any sort of business with Sherry. I would advise others to exercise caution in doing the same. read more

I had a wonderful experience with Angel Service Dogs. Our dog was well trained and has done so much to improve our family's quality of life. My daughter is allergic to multiple foods and the dog has helped her navigate her world. We were virtually homebound before. We continue to receive training tips and emotional support from the company even though we got the dog years ago. read more

ASDi has provided us with a dog that has saved my daughter's life multiple times. With our continued training we have come to be more in tune with him and learn his personality. We also spent 2 weeks in Colorado learning the basics of using our dog and how to continue our training so that we could better bond with the dog provided. We have had no issues with our Dog or ASDi when we have needed help. I highly recommend this organization to those who are looking for a dog they are willing to work with and spend time with to learn to use this tool to help keep their child safe. read more

In 2009 we contacted ASDI to find a dog for my son who is deadly allergic to peanuts. He has a airborne allergy. We wanted just one more tool to help try to keep my son safe and in School. We raised 17,000 to purchase the dog and the two weeks of training in Colorado to Roxie home with us. We had issues from the get go while in Colorado. First we were never told we would have to train Roxie many times per week with the one item we vowed to keep away from my son. The hotel we stayed out for those 2 weeks, were feeding the squirrels which left peanut shells all over the grounds. My son ended up going to the ER while there due to the fact of cross contamination from someone touching peanuts and then touching our leash. One month after getting home my son had his first reaction after getting back with our new dog. They were loading my son into the ambulance, our newly 12,500.00 dog freaked out slipped her collar and bolted across the school parking lot. So while they were working on my son, the school nurse and I were chasing down my son's Service dog. We live on a navy base, I told Sherry Mers this as well as we travel a lot for my daughters basketball team she was on. Not one time did she pass this along to our trainer. So needless to say she could not handle loud noises, big groups, basketball games etc. Went to my sons school musical and she started to bark while the kids were signing. Our trainer left the company as soon as we graduated. So, we had to work with a different trainer on all our issues. Roxie could detect peanuts that was not our issue, but you add kids, music, loud noises, balls etc to the mix and she could not focus to detect peanuts. If we wanted to stay home and not try to give my son some kind of normal life, why in the world would I need a dog. So after working with the trainers for 3 more months, the new trainers and myself went to Brett and Sherry Mers to see what could be done. I was sent a notarized letter saying they were willing to take Roxy back to be retrained for another 2500.00 plus the cost of travel to get her there and back again. There was no way I was going to pay this only 4 months after we got her. Just found out from our former trainer, that Roxie failed her first certification and our trainer went to them asking for more time to train her. He did this on more then 1 occasion. When he told Brett Mers this he was told " I don't care if you have to shove a peanut up that dogs ass, but she will be ready for graduation". so needless to say she was never fully trained from the start. Please do major research when deciding to purchase a service dog from this company. I hear they are great to you if you have no issues and your dog works, But lord help if you have issues with your new service dog. They drop you like a bad habit and have nothing to do with you any longer. read more