Promoting well-being and facilitating meaningful connection in the school system is the goal of Bella’s Buddies, a nonprofit organization of uniquely trained facility dogs that recently landed in Mineral.

Founder and Executive Director Amanda Davis started her nonprofit in Texas and now operates out of Virginia, bringing utility dogs to school systems in order to improve emotional wellness in the classrooms. Everyone wants to be liked by a dog, according to Davis, which is why the organization has proven so successful at every school level.

Bella’s Buddies Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that trains emotional support dogs within educational institutions, to be placed in schools or veteran homes.

The organization’s unique K-9 University (K9U) program partners with schools to train dogs in a unique social setting, ultimately taught to serve veterans, students and provide a sense of comfort for anyone in need. The program works to improve school climate by creating another layer of support for students and faculty, with the dogs providing unconditional support.

Facility dogs are specialized canines that assist individuals in a wide range of spaces. They are trained to perform specific tasks to reduce anxiety, enhance therapy and provide comfort in unique ways.

“Most of our dogs are what we call ‘dual trained,’” Davis said. “They’re trained in therapy tasks and also in some service dog tasks.”

Bella’s Buddies’ mission statement reads, “Connecting communities with highly-trained dogs to promote physical and emotional well-being.”

The organization’s namesake, Bella, was the first golden retriever Davis raised from a puppy in 2012 to work as a facility dog. Her speciality was in PTSD support and heart palpitation alert, and she was donated to a Vietnam veteran once her training was complete. The foundation has since continued the tradition of working with golden retrievers.

In the Spring of 2026, Bella’s Buddies began its partnership with the Louisa County Public School (LCPS) system. Davis and her husband Tommy operate the organization from their home, and in June of 2025, made the move from Texas to Mineral. Davis explained their reasoning for the move.

“We wanted to be in a good school district that would be open and innovative and willing to work with this crazy idea that has taken root in Texas,” Davis said.

Bella’s Buddies made visits to the LCPS high school campus and the alternative education campus in the 2026 spring semester. In the fall, Bella’s Buddies will implement the K9U program full-time at LCPS sites, with the ultimate goal to have a dog on each campus.

Davis emphasized her optimism for the developing partnership with LCPS.

“I have been in a lot of schools,” she said. “I have never been in a school district that was so invested in not only the academic health of the students, but their emotional well-being and truly their futures.”

Davis stated the program has demonstrated quantifiable success in the school districts where it has been implemented.

“We’ve seen math scores in one school district increase. State math scores increased by 9% with a dog in the room,” she said. “When the kids are taking tests, we’ve seen discipline referrals significantly decrease. Selfreferrals for counseling have increased on high school campuses.”

She explained that therapy dogs are an impactful tool for students who may be struggling outside the classroom as well.

“There are many children who are living in horrific situations and then come to school and try to be what everyone else wants them to be,” Davis said. “The dogs learn how to work with the kids and to partner with them to help them try to process through all that so that they can just get through the day.”

Davis has brought the dogs to central offices as well as classrooms.

“Staff members are able to come in and just sit down with the dogs,” she said. “It’s a way for them to decompress, process a little bit of what they were feeling. A dog doesn’t ever tell us how long to grieve, when to get over it, or how we should process our emotions.”

She explained that much of the facility dog’s training occurs within the school setting, with the dogs developing their social behaviors alongside the students.

“Our dogs in training will be literally trained by the students. They’ll earn time to spend with the dogs and in teaching the dogs to self-regulate and self-soothe and know appropriate behaviors at appropriate times,” she said. “Then in doing that, it’s a symbiotic benefit.”

Davis and Tommy manage further training from their home. Once the dogs have proper obedience training, they begin their work with students. They currently have seven puppies in active training, and several older dogs continuing to strengthen in discipline.

“There’s a certain number of hours that we try to get the dogs growing up in schools,” Tommy said. “Once they get there, they’re ready to go. They stay in school all day, every day. They’re there from bell to bell.”

Boomer, a three-year-old golden retriever, frequents the classrooms and will be a part of the LCPS partnership. He is specialized in certain service dog tendencies, and is trained to soothe students or simply be a buddy to relax with.

Davis and Tommy employ community members to assist with the dogs as well.

Leah Klinkbeil, an LCPS parent of several students who are excited for the dogs to begin coming in full-time, is involved with the training process.

“I love working with dogs, and I’ve had dogs my whole life,” she said. “I’m helping to train the puppies to be ready to go into the schools, like learning how to stay and come when you call them. I come in at 8 o’clock, feed the dogs, and then start their day of training.”

Bella’s Buddies plans to launch several community-centered initiatives in the future, in addition to the partnership with LCPS.

“We plan to launch a community volunteer walking program where people can come a couple of times a week to spend time with the dogs,” Davis said.

Davis and her team are additionally planning to open a tandem Little Free Library and English-style garden in the nearby Waldon Park, open to the community as a calming environment to relax in the company of the dogs.

“We are actively looking for a sponsor to help bring the Little Free Library project to life,” Amanda Davis said. “As a nonprofit, we rely on donations, volunteers, partnerships and sponsors.”

The organization continues outreach through their lighthearted social media posts. Their short-form video TikTok page has a following of 4,500 supporters, and they can additionally be found on Facebook and Instagram.

Davis made the decision to establish Bella’s Buddies after her diagnosis with a long-term illness that led her into an early retirement. In 2012, Davis received an aorta donation from a veteran donor who had been killed in duty in Afghanistan.

“That really hit home for me,” she said. “My dad served six tours as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. When he came back, he was very different and was never able to reconcile with the ghosts that came home with him.”

For Davis, this connection was pivotal to her decision to begin Bella’s Buddies.

“I, in the deepest parts of my soul, believe that if he would have had a service dog in my life, my childhood could have been different,” she said. “So we started looking at how we can help not just veterans, but also their families and their children.”

She expressed her optimism in bringing Bella’s Buddies to Louisa County and looks forward to building a program meaningful to the broader community.

“We saw a need,” Davis said. “There’s not anybody in the nation who does what we do.”