For the past several years, we’ve heard a lot about veterans suffering from PTSD after returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. And we’ve heard the stories about the various (sometimes interesting) methods to help them — from biofeedback to gardening to nudity. But one approach that’s helping thousands of soldiers is a basic one: Pairing them with man’s best friend.
Jake Fish of Port Angeles, Washington, was medically discharged from the Marine Corps in 1997. But in recent years, he continued to struggle with PTSD. Coming to his rescue was the service dog Megan, a two-year-old golden retriever, who was trained by the local nonprofit New Leash on Life.
New Leash on Life trains dogs and puppies left at the Clallam Humane Society to become service animals — ultimately providing them to veterans and people with disabilities.
Fish told the Peninsula Daily News, “The biggest thing about having Megan is that I’m not lonely. She gives me a feeling of companionship. I also know for a fact that she lowers my stress levels. She puts me in a good mood when I don’t want to be in one.”
As soon as Fish was paired with Megan, he began bringing her to the Northwest Veterans Resource Center, where he volunteers to help other vets access their benefits from the VA. Megan decided to volunteer for duty, too.
“Vets will come into the office, and we’ll start going over the paperwork, which means talking about all the vets’ pain and issues they have. It can get kind of tense,” Fish said. “Megan will get up from behind my desk and go to the person, and they just relax. She’s so happy and soft, they forget what they’re talking about that happened to them when they’re petting her. She lessens their anxiety of talking about stuff.”
“I feel like helping others as a service officer is a continuation of my duty,” Fish said. Megan clearly has figured out that helping more than just her veteran owner is a continuation of her duty, too.
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Tag: Service Animals
While Her Owner Serves Overseas, This Dog Serves Her Country at Home
To say that the Cook family has a deep responsibility for national service is an understatement.
Alan Cook is an Air Force veteran. His daughter Danielle Cook is currently a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force. Danielle’s mother and grandfather served too. And the line of service in this family doesn’t stop there — now that Danielle is deployed overseas in Afghanistan, her dog Harper helps veterans suffering PTSD through a program called Circle of Change.
Harper lives with Danielle’s dad and visits the Dog Den, a doggy daycare center in Madison while Sergeant Cook is gone. Workers at the Dog Den thought Harper would be a good candidate for the Circle of Change program. “She is very shy and fearful, but at the same time she is gentle. She’s the perfect dog for our veterans program,” Dog Den employee Deborah Crawley told Gordon Severson of WAOW.
In Circle of Change classes, veterans suffering from PTSD teach dogs who have behavioral problems how to relax and follow commands. This training helps the dogs overcome their fears. Another beneficial outcome? The veterans find their PTSD symptoms are often eased by working with the animals, too.
Desert Storm veteran Mike Weber, a participant in the first six-week Circle of Change course, said working with the dogs helped him feel better. “My way of handling my problem was just to avoid everything. This has really helped me come back out and kind of get me back on track,” Weber told Severson. “It’s such a great program and it really has helped me bond with not only the animals, but other vets and volunteers.”
“We’re a military family all the way down to the dog now,” Alan Cook told Severson. “My daughter is just so proud of Harper and thinks it’s a great thing. It gives her something to do while my daughter is away overseas.”
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Veterans Receive Donations From an Unlikely Source: A 12-Year-Old Girl
Whereas most teenagers want clothing or a new smartphone for their birthday, Katy Sell wanted something, well, let’s say, quite different, for her 12th birthday. She wanted to help U.S. veterans.
After Katy’s mother challenged her to do something kind for others on her birthday, Katy, who lives in Deubrook, South Dakota, came up with a bigger idea than her mom ever imagined: She decided to donate all of her presents to the California-based Big Paws Canine Academy and Foundation, a nonprofit that trains service animals for veterans and has a Midwest branch in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
According to the Big Paws website, Katy and her mother Julie Sell, a Navy veteran, were homeless seven years ago. It was that tough experience that gave them extra motivation to help others.
When people heard about Katy’s generosity, her school friends and many others chipped in additional donations to help the nonprofit. At Katy’s birthday party, several veterans brought their service animals to meet the generous teen and her friends. Ricky Crudden told Denise DePaolo of KSFY, “I lost the use of my legs due to a stroke because of COPD.” Big Paws matched him with his service dog Tracer. Crudden said, “He saved my life. He woke me up in the middle of the night.”
During the party, one veteran received the dog he’d been waiting for — giving Katy the experience of seeing the first moments of a new relationship. “It gives me a good, tingly feeling inside because I know I’m helping a lot of people,” Sell told DePaolo.
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Savvy Mechanics Help Disabled Veterans Hit the Open Road
Nine surgeries. A knee replacement. Thyroid cancer.
Justin Madore’s doctors said he should forget about riding his beloved motorcycles ever again, after the Kalamazoo soldier was badly injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. His artificial knee would make him topple. He had lost stability.
He sold his bike.
But a Michigan nonprofit had a different idea.
Madore’s buddy, retired Army Sgt. Brad VandenBerg, couldn’t accept that verdict.
VandenBerg started the nonprofit Two Wheels for Warriors in 2012 with the goal of raising funds to create specially designed motorcycles for injured veterans.
After fundraising for two years, VandenBerg worked with Dirty Boyz Motorcycles in Plainwell, Mich., to take a $6,000 “salvage bike” and redesign it for Madore.
The design accommodates his injuries, and includes a sidecar for his service dog Cody, a Labrador retriever and poodle mix that helps him cope with PTSD. The sidecar also stabilizes the bike.
Two Wheels for Warriors is also working with Bob Body, who lost a leg in Iraq. Soon he should be out on the open road just like Madore, who is feeling better about everything now that he has a custom motorcycle.
The new ride “is helping my PTSD tremendously because it’s so relaxing,” Madore says. “When I had a stressful day I’d just hop on the bike and go for a ride and now I can do that again.”
“I got Cody on the side, I look down and he had a smile on his face,” Madore says. “I’m back on a bike again, couldn’t be happier.”
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This Organization Knows How to Simultaneously Save Veterans and Dogs
Sometimes all someone needs is a best friend. And that’s exactly how several nonprofits are changing veterans lives — whether it’s by pairing them with service animals or reuniting them with the dogs they befriended in Afghanistan. And now, Canines for Veterans is doing the same for both incarcerated service members and those injured and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The unique program works like this: Program coordinators search for dogs through pet rescue organizations. These animals are then paired with veterans serving time at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. After completing a service-dog training course, each inmate is assigned a dog, selects a name for it and lives with it, training the animal to perform such tasks as opening a refrigerator or loading a washing machine for a disabled veteran or comforting one suffering from PTSD. After nine to 12 months of training, Canines for Veterans reviews applications from veterans who’d like a service animal, then pairs each dog with the veteran. The veteran then visits Charleston to learn how to work with the dog. Eventually, the pair goes home together.
“The prisoner in some cases has never completed anything (before),” Rick Hairston, president and CEO of Canines for Service told Mike Spencer of the Star News. “They haven’t been able to complete their military service. They’re looking for somebody who wants to give them a chance and this program does it.” He hopes the dog training program provides prisoners with job skills and a sense of accomplishment that will pave the way to a more promising future when they leave the facility.
One prisoner who trains dogs said, “It’s good for me because it helps my time here go by fast and it gives me the feeling of helping someone…They put their lives on the line for us and the only way I can thank them is by training this dog.”
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Canines for Veterans Offers A Second Chance for Vets in Prison
Canines for Veterans Teaches Imprisoned Vets how to Train Service Dogs for Disabled Vets
This Documentarian Is Filming Incredible Vets — and Helping Them at the Same Time
Ski fans have been enjoying movies by the pioneering snow sport documentarian Warren Miller for decades. Now Miller’s son Kurt, of Niwot, Colo., is filming sports-themed documentaries with a new purpose: to show injured veterans and other people with disabilities participating in adaptive sports. Kurt Miller’s non-profit, Make A Hero, has a Wounded Military Fighter’s Fund that’s currently raising donations to buy a service dog for former Army Corporal Jesse Murphree of Westminster, Colo., who underwent 58 surgeries and lost his both legs after an injury in Afghanistan in 2007.
They’ve raised about $3,500 toward the goal of $6,000 to pay for Jasper, a 2-year-old German shepherd the trainer has already given Murphree on credit. Murphree told Whitney Bryen of the Longmont Times-Call, “I have a partner. It’s the same idea as having a battle buddy in the field watching your back.”
In exchange for providing Murphree with Jasper, the folks at Make A Hero made one request of him: to star in their new film, the water-sports themed The Current. “I’m not really a water guy,” Murphree told Bryen, “but when they asked if I wanted a free trip to Mexico, I figured why not.” In the film, Murphree learns how to scuba dive. Off-screen, he proposed to his girlfriend while in Mexico. The film debuted at the Boulder International Film Festival on Sunday, with the aim to raise the additional donations needed to pay for Jasper. We have a good feeling that they’ll meet their goal.
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A Dog Trained By a Prisoner Helps an Autistic Boy Learn to Hug His Mom Again
Susy Tucker’s 11-year-old son Zach has Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism that leaves him with plenty of challenges. The Colorado Springs boy had trouble relating to others, and stopped letting his parents hug him at age 5. Zach fell behind in school, and was becoming more isolated when his parents sought help from an innovative program.
Christopher Vogt is an inmate at the Trinidad Correctional Facility in southern Colorado, convicted for second-degree murder. While Vogt served his 48-year term, he began learning how to train service dogs through the Prison Trained K-9 Companion program. After a decade of practice, Vogt became so skilled at teaching the animals that prison officials gave him permission to train dogs for kids with autism and other special needs.
Vogt studied books about autism to understand how a dog might help kids with the disorder. Each dog he trains sleeps with him in his cell, and accompanies him while he stands in lines and goes through his daily prison routine. Vogt mimics the behaviors kids with autism might display, and teaches the dogs to gently “nudge” him out of these spells with their noses.
When the Tucker family was looking for help with their son, they learned that trained service dogs can cost $20,000 or more. But the Prison Trained K-9 Companion Program would provide them with a specially-trained dog for only $750, much of which is used to keep the program running. When the Tuckers decided to try a dog trained by Vogt to help their son, Vogt asked them detailed questions about Zach’s behaviors so he could train a dog named Clyde to serve Zach. Then they traveled to a prison in Sterling, Colo. several times so Vogt could teach Zach how to interact with the dog.
Since Zach brought Clyde home in 2011, his transformation has been remarkable. Zach stopped crying for hours every time he went to bed. When he was in third grade, he was working at the kindergarten level. Now he’s caught up to his classmates and is even advanced in math, with the help of Clyde, who accompanies him to school. Zach told Kirk Mitchell of the Denver Post, “Taking care of Clyde was really freaking hard. It’s paying off. He keeps my anxiety down. The focus factor helped.”
Ami Nunn, Zach’s special-education teacher, told Mitchell, “Having Clyde has allowed him to open up to people in a way that I don’t think he would have otherwise. He just has blossomed.”
And Susy Tucker has a prisoner and a special dog to thank for the fact that, after four years of shirking her touch, her son began hugging her again.
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