My name is Caitlin Malone and I am the founder of Kids Best Friends. I am a mother of three young children, and like many parents across America, I worry every single day about their safety at school.

As I ushered my oldest daughter onto campus for her first day of kindergarten, I felt dread and fear fill my entire body. I knew then as I know now, that actually nothing about it was irrational. I was knowingly and dreadfully placing her in a scenario where she was exposed to more danger than ever before in her life. And I knew that during that school year it was inevitable: many families across our country would tragically lose their loved ones to school shootings.

I am part of a generation of parents who grew up knowing the reality of school shootings as students themselves. We repeatedly watch in horror, now through the intensified lens of parenthood, as school shootings devastate and traumatize our nation. While the numbers continue to climb, we gaslight ourselves that “it won’t happen to us,” when the reality is that our nation’s schools and kids are alarmingly exposed to what is officially the most lethal killer of children in America.

The data shows that the existing school security measures, including police and armed guards, have not resulted in a reduction of incidents, or deterred the people determined to cause harm. Schools need a boots (and paws) on the ground security solution that is preventative, prepared for and effective in crisis, and therapeutic for kids.

Kids Best Friends school safety dogs are a proactive and effective solution for school safety, daily and in crisis. According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, stopping school shootings requires crisis intervention, weapons detection, and better situational awareness. Dogs are a widely proven deterrent, provide the most effective detection that is more dynamic and reliable than technology, have heightened situational awareness, unparalleled response time, and are highly effective for threat neutralization.

Knowing the data around school shootings, cross-referenced with the documented effectiveness of working dogs and dogs of service, I feel a profound responsibility to my kids and all kids to make Kids Best Friends a new reality. I am extremely proud of the holistic, dynamic and effective canine security solution we have for schools.

Our team is fervently committed to making a quantifiable difference in schools as quickly as possible, while our amazing dogs train daily for their important jobs. Our dogs love to work, live to serve, and will sacrifice themselves to protect their people. There is no more critical place for these dogs to work in my opinion, than our schools today.

It is our honor and our privilege to protect your kids and make schools safer with Kids Best Friends. Thank you for joining us in being a proactive part of the solution.