...is a warm puppy

For too many post-911 veterans the return home is only a redeployment to the battlespace of their own minds where the cycle of trauma plays out ad infinitum. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is estimated to affect between 11 and 20% of veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, generally referred to as the War in Afghanistan. That’s 300,000 men and women, or 300,001, because there’s always one more. Of those diagnosed, 27% also suffer from substance use disorder, or SUD. Veteran suicide rates stand at over double civilian rates. Billions of dollars, a variety of treatments and therapies, and millions of little amber bottles of medication have been employed to try to deal with the psychological wounds of combat, but there is another instrument of healing, alive and empathetic, innocent in the presence of the individual veteran’s comprehension of horror, the most beloved creature on the planet, the dog.
These psychiatric service dogs are carefully selected and specially trained to recognize and mitigate the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly referred to as PTSD. The mere act of eye contact between a dog and a human releases waves of oxytocin, the “love hormone”, through the human’s system, but the role of these dogs encompasses far more than the companionship of a faithful pet. To understand the importance of the tasks they perform, we first have to understand the nature of PTSD itself.
PTSD is a mental health condition caused by trauma, in the cases of veterans, by war, in which the brain undergoes structural and functional change. What happens in the brain? Technically, the hippocampus shrinks; there is increased activity in the amygdala; the ventromedial prefrontal… But what does all that mean? How does that translate to a human life? PTSD looks like war, tastes like terror, feels like hell. The warzone comes in from the cold like the legendary camel and makes its home in the human heart.
Hyperarousal, being constantly on guard, or as one veteran described it, being “jacked up- ready for a fight” is a hallmark symptom. Emotional detachment, rage, anxiety and depression become the new reality. Sleep cycles are so disrupted that sleep is often impossible for days on end, and even the few hours of sleep possible are punctuated by horrific nightmares of carnage and the fog of war. Flashbacks transfer consciousness unexpectedly to another time and place, a checkpoint, a minefield, a firefight. The whole world becomes a fighting hole since the flashbacks can strike at any time or place: in the shopping center, at a football game, on the highway. Sirens, news reports and movies, things as residential as a lawnmower backfiring or as iconically American as fireworks can transport the veteran to the frontline in an instant.
To help our military men and women cope with, and ultimately recover from, these symptoms, non-profit organizations like Paws of War, Alpha K9, Operation Delta Dog and Paws for Veterans, to name only a handful, select, train and provide PTSD service dogs to those who need them at no cost to the veterans themselves.
Though collies, golden retrievers, Labradors, German shepherds and standard poodles are some of the most common breeds among service dogs, a dog of any breed can be trained to be a PTSD service dog if it is in good health and its temperament is right for the job. The training of each dog is exhaustive and highly specialized and can take up to 18 months and cost many thousands of dollars.
After a dog is fully trained, it is matched with a single individual whom it accompanies at all times, usually staying within 24 inches. It can even legally accompany its handler into restaurants, grocery stores and hotel rooms. In crowded areas, which may cause its human handler’s anxiety to skyrocket, the dog can be commanded to “block”, meaning stand between its handler and anyone nearby, creating a zone of protected personal space.
The service dog is also highly sensitive to any change in its handler’s mood, behavior or breathing. Shaking, cracking knuckles, picking at the face or nervously scratching, crying or abnormal breathing alert the service dog to an elevated anxiety level. Gently, with a paw or a nudging muzzle, the dog will redirect attention from troubling thoughts or intrusive memories and calm its handler down. In the case of a flashback, panic attack or nightmare the dog is able to interrupt the cycle of terror by rousing its handler and keeping him or her grounded in the present.
After months or years of having their heads on the swivel, wary of danger from any quarter, it’s very difficult for traumatized veterans to let their guard down, sometimes even in their own houses. Returning service men and women often feel threatened by the dark halls and back rooms of home. On just entering the house the rooms are quiet, too quiet to be safe. Because of this, their service dogs have been trained to turn on lights and “sweep” the house by entering each room, assuring their handlers that nobody bad and nothing dangerous is waiting for them.
The service dog also finds and fetches things for its handler: medication at the prescribed times; keys, wallet, phone, anything that its handler may have misplaced due to the negative impact PTSD has on memory. It also fetches objects that provide sensory grounding to prevent a flashback, such as a beverage or the TV remote, anything that keeps the consciousness cemented in the present.
And undergirding all the training that transforms donated puppies and kill-shelter mutts into service dogs is themselves. The companionship they provide helps fill the void created when veterans leave the tight-knit military units that were their security, their family and their world. And just as their morale and wellbeing depends to such a large degree on their service dogs, the welfare of their dogs depends entirely on them.
In an era when warfare is becoming increasingly technological, and the study of its effects on the human organism ever more complex, the imperishable interaction of a single individual and a dog can still transform a life. Simple things, a calming presence and unconditional love, an evening walk and the reflection of the world through innocent eyes will always make the difference.