Veterans and Shelter Dogs Partner Up
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By Emily Dake
Emily Dake is a graduate of Vassar College and executive assistant at SWAN. In her spare time, she enjoys theater, music and Gothic literature.
Amid anxiety over the security of veterans services under the new debt deal, one community is thinking outside the box to provide unique services to veterans and help place shelter animals with permanent homes at the same time.
The Veterans & Shelter Dogs program at the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine places veterans as amateur trainers of shelter dogs. The program is part of a study to find out how to make shelter dogs more adoptable and able to better adapt to their new families. The study also looks at how working with and training animals can help alleviate symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in veterans:
The dogs, either abandoned or relinquished, all come from the Central Missouri Humane Society. The shelter, the only open-acceptance facility within a 150-mile radius of Columbia, takes in about 7,000 animals a year.
“During the summer, the busiest time, the shelter can take in 30 to 40 animals a day,” said former Marine Sgt. Nick Holman, who works for the Humane Society and volunteers with the veteran/dog project.
“After too long in the shelter, dogs are euthanized. It’s hoped that training from the study makes them more desirable.”
Said Helen Jameson, a certified dog-training instructor who has worked in the program since it started in March: “Our observation is that the vets gain skills in dog training and get help being better people, help with their anxiety, aggressions and stress. They know they are helping the animal, too.”
[One veteran] finds it hard to put into words how time with the dogs affects him.
“When the dog does good, then you have done good,” he said. “Working with the dogs makes you feel like you are accomplishing something. And they are always happy to see you.”
Before, he slept poorly and often was stressed. It still occurs, he said, but not as often.
The program hopes to maximize these results by identifying shelter dogs who may be able to go on to be full-fledged service dogs for veterans with PTSD:
So far, two females, Stella and Tiddley, have been identified with special abilities and are living with veterans while training to be service dogs.
“These dogs can go into a dark room ahead of their vet and turn on the light so the vet doesn’t have to walk into a dark place,” Holman said.
“They are trained to go around a corner ahead of their vet and then let them know it’s clear. They sleep in the same room with their vet, and if the vet starts to have a night terror, the dog turns on the light, keeps its distance and barks to wake the vet out of the terror.”
Recently, law gave these dogs the same public access as guide dogs for the blind.
Learn more about this creative program by reading the full article:
