To train a Vet's best friend

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as many as 20 percent of the veterans of the two U.S. military operations in Iraq, 12 percent of Gulf War veterans, and 15 percent of Vietnam veterans are adversely affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those who experience it may have trouble coping with anger, experience depression or chronic pain, have trouble sleeping, or have substance abuse problems. Some may entertain ideas of suicide.

As a retired U.S. Navy nurse, Kathy Nateman — a Legate of the Miami Chapter along with her husband, David — is aware of the personal struggles of some veterans and has found a way to combine her love for dogs with helping veterans who struggle with PTSD. For the past 15 years she has schooled puppies as a volunteer for Florida’s Southeastern Guide Dogs, which places therapy dogs with veterans, persons with visual impairments, and children with certain issues.

The process begins when Nateman welcomes an eight-week-old puppy into her home. For the next 14 to 16 months, she trains him in 20 basic commands and prepares him for his next phase of schooling. Once the training is complete, the highly trained service dogs (valued at $60,000 each) are paired with a person in need. Nateman has trained eight dogs on her own and has assisted in the training of 15 others.

One of her dogs, a yellow lab named Mussy, was given to Marine veteran Joshua Currier, who had served five years as a Marine helicopter mechanic and pistol range coach with deployments to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. When Currier returned home to Florida, he had difficult readjusting to civilian life: he would get agitated in crowds, was anxious even during simple trips to the grocery store, and often isolated himself in the house.

Currier “was in a dark place, headed to suicide,” Nateman said, but Mussy helped “turn his life around.” Although it was painful to see his suffering, “it brought tears to my eyes that this bundle of fur saved the life of a man who was defending our country.”

Currier concurred. “This is life-changing for me,” he said. “It gives me hope for the future, something to focus on and somebody to live for. In all honesty, this is probably going to save my life.”

PROJECT2HEAL

Charlie and Sandy Petrizzo were members of Legatus’ Charlotte Chapter before moving to Waxhaw, a 40-minute drive south on the interstate from Charlotte. They founded and operate Project2Heal, which does the initial stage of training service dogs for veterans and other individuals in need.

Charlie noted that service dog organizations look for trainable dogs in shelters but on average only one out of 12 dogs they work with actually completes training and is successfully placed. In its 11 years of existence, Project2Heal has trained 500 puppies, Charlie said, about two-thirds of which are successfully trained and placed with clients.

Charlie and Sandy are volunteers themselves, but they oversee a paid staff of six who train puppies beginning two days after birth. At about eight to 12 weeks, the pups are donated to service dog organizations and enter the next phase of training.

Once all training is complete, they can be placed with clients, including veterans.

One client who accepted a Project2Heal dog is a veteran who returned from Iraq with severe injuries from a missile strike. He has undergone 24 surgeries and is unable to stand unaided. The dog was trained to brace so that the veteran could use the dog for support whenever he stood or sat.

“This guy had small children,” Charlie said, “and he couldn’t even get down on the floor to play with them.”

Another vet who suffered from PTSD related before receiving one of the Petrizzos’ dogs that “he was only a trigger-pull away from taking his life,” Charlie said. “He promised me he would take great care of the dog, and I assured him the dog would take great care of him. He was crying throughout the conversation.”

The Petrizzos’ work began as a leap of faith, in a way. Charlie was a nominal Catholic working in a financial institution when he began struggling with deep depression and eventually turned to Scripture and his Catholic faith. He began attending daily Mass, saying the rosary, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, and studying the faith. He then discerned that God was calling him to found Project2Heal and now uses his three-acre home as the dog-training site.

He takes great pride in his work helping the nation’s veterans and others in need, but he expressed frustration that it takes vets so long to get a service dog because so many more could benefit.

“We donate 60 or 70 dogs a year,” he said. “There is a demand for 500.”

There’s good news, though: Congress last year passed the PAWS Act of 2021, which requires the VA to conduct a five-year pilot program to provide canine training at no cost to eligible veterans diagnosed with PTSD as part of a complementary and integrative health program.

Study: PTSD service dogs can be anxiety busters

A 2020 study led by Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine revealed that the most vital task performed for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by trained service dogs was the disrupting of episodes of anxiety.

The study found that, on average, the dog’s training to both alert the veteran to any increasing anxiety and providing physical contact during anxiety episodes were reported to be the most important and the most often used in a typical day.

Veterans with a service dog also rated all of the service dog’s trained tasks — such as picking up on the vet’s anxiety cues and redirecting his attention and waking him up from nightmares — as being “moderately” to “quite a bit” important for their PTSD.

Kerri Rodriguez, then a Purdue graduate student and now a research fellow with the Human-Animal Bond in Colorado at the Colorado State University School of Social Work, was lead author of the study. Her dissertation research at Purdue toward her Ph.D. in human-animal interaction quantified how service dogs may benefit the lives of their handlers with physical disabilities or mental disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“There has been some debate on what kind of training PTSD service dogs need to be effective and how their assistance may be different than what a pet dog can provide,” said Rodriguez. “This study suggests that veterans are, in fact, using and benefiting from the specific trained tasks, which sets these dogs apart from pet dogs or emotional support dogs.”