Canine Service Animals
-By Timothy Lyons
I first met Mable and Meatloaf, two Canine Service Animals, through my friend. The man who owns them was a 
soldier. Due to an IED that hit the Stryker in which he was deployed, he now has several physical problems which he will never be able to overcome. Because this brave soldier was in the Special Forces I can only tell you that he was stationed on behalf of our country sometime during the last stages of the most recent wars. If you are an American, he fought for you. He is a very good soul who was trained by the best fighting force in the world. Although this is a great opportunity to have the world learn of how service members are assisted, this brave soldier wants his privacy. Privacy that he needs in order to heal. Private time that he can spend with his Canine Service Animals Mable and Meatloaf. This soldier is adamant that there are other soldiers who are far more in need of these Canine Service Animals who don’t have them yet and that there are as many diverse scenarios in obtaining dogs as there are dogs. Each journey is different and this is just one service members journey.
These dogs are specially trained Canine Service Animals. Meatloaf is a very large brown and white St Bernard and Mable is a pretty green eyed Malamute. A service dog is one that is trained to do a specific task. They react to certain situations. They are trained to perform in the event that situation arises. The reason that there are two of them is obvious when I am told the story. Meatloaf is so large because he is used to help stabilize his owner. He is larger and has far greater strength that Mabel. His owner has problems with balance, seizures and fainting from his Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). In this case there are times when Meatloaf has to react to his owner in times of crisis. If his owner were to fall from fainting or seizures, Meatloaf would be there to help him stay up or to get up after the crisis ends.
Mabel is a loving creature. She is so friendly. She is trained to notice when her owner is feeling down or depressed. She is for emotional assistance because of her owners post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this case her owner felt that something was missing in his life. Due to his PTSD he often felt depressed and down. Mabel is his companion. These types of Canine Service Animals are trained to notice the depressed states that service members like her owner might be in. They attempt to bring the owner out of their funk. They can do this by licking or playing with the veteran until there is an attitude change and the owner responds in a more positive manner.
How it Works
The most amazing thing that I was told by more than one veteran who I interviewed, was that when these Canine Service Animals come into their lives there is a reduced need for medications. In the case of Meatloaf and Mabel’s owner, when the dogs are around him his medication use was nonexistent. I did a double take. Due to his situation in some training in Washington State he was unable to have his dogs with him. At the time of the interview he had to be on regimen of medication to stabilize his mood. Just months earlier when the dogs were at his side he took nothing because the dogs were so effective in combatting his stress anxiety and depression.
Each Canine Service Animals has to be trained to the owner’s specific needs. The Veterans Administration (VA) can help find the dogs. In many cases the VA uses outside companies to train the dogs for service and then they find the service members with whom they can match the dog. In order to receive a dog you have to meet certain criteria, however, you can be put on a wait list for up to three years. It takes a Canine Service Animals up to a year or more to be trained, but in my interviews, I was told that to train a dog properly takes a lifetime. In the case of amputees they will need extra help. These dogs can be trained to open doors, flush toilets, and carry items for their master just to list a few tasks.
Problems
Mabel and Meatloaf’s owner had received a Canine Service Animals in this same manner from the VA. Overall the VA was not initially helpful. He had to deal with them over and over to get help. He eventually got the VA to come around and help him. The problem was that the dog that he had been given was a very good dog with people but was ineffective around other dogs and was too aggressive. The dog was given back to be reused in another area better suited to that temperament. The owner told me that he found his own dogs because it was faster and he could get help that catered to him as an individual. In this way the dogs are connected to him and were and are being trained with him specifically in mind. He was able to learn enough and get enough training himself so that he could train Mable while Meatloaf has special skills that take training from an outside source.
He told me that the better training organizations try to teach the owner and the dog. An even better scenarios is when the owners are trained to train the dogs. In this way, there is training in both areas, on how to train the dog and how to use the dog to benefit you and get the most out of it. There are lots of companies that are not reputable. They may have high costs and they may not train the service member how to work with the animal. The best companies are those that train both.
Canine Service Animals should be trained to be social and it is best to have the recipient there during the training. In the case of the VA they only allowed him to get a pre-trained dog and did not allow him to get the training he needed. He did give me a caution that this was over seven months ago as of this writing. The VA does have connections to get a vet into programs where they are trained. I was asked to mention that there are unscrupulous operators and that because of the lack of laws or standards, they do not give the best training and service. It is important to be aware of fake or unlicensed trainers that might prey on the fact that a person is looking for a trained service dog. If one really looks they should make sure that the training allows the owner to be there to get trained and to train the dog and to be there for all the trainings. It is also important to view the facilities. If you pay out of pocket it can be as expensive as $5,000 for proper training. Sometimes cheaper is not always better. I was told that if it sounds too good to be true it just might be. Some training companies are just better than others.
Better Training
In finishing the interview I was told about a place that just might be one of the better ones. I was directed to a ranch located in Calaveras County California in the area of San Andreas. The Silver Paw Ranch located at 3625 Magnolia Ln San Andreas, CA 95249 has not been doing their trainings long. They are not even very big, but when I contacted the veteran who runs the ranch, Mr. Guy Sheble, he assured me that, “Even though we are not huge, what we are doing is huge.”
I went to the ranch one Saturday morning to see just what Guy was talking about. The Ranch only uses dogs that have been rescued. They prefer to train dogs that are less than two years old so they have longevity. They place the dogs through an assessment to ensure proper temperament. In the last 18 months, Silver Paw Ranch has involved 60 veterans in trainings. Guys’ philosophy for teaching comes about from his own experience as a disabled vet. He had an epiphany about this type of assistance in service to his fellow disabled countrymen when he was being discharged from the armed forces. He was with a group of 25 soldiers. Many of whom had gone through a lengthy ordeal of getting a service dog. One of the discharge personnel from the Department of Defense had asked the group to give a show of hands on how many of them had tried to commit suicide. Every person in the group raised their hand except Guy. It seemed as if the Dogs had been the link that now helped these disabled soldiers to go on. Guy was sold on the idea that he wanted to devote the rest of his life to therapy through the use of animals.
The other very important focus in Guys’ work seems to be this idea that the disabled veteran owner must be trained to train their own dog. Guy learned with his own experience when he helped to train his dog, a beautiful German Shepard name Tex. The Silver Paw Ranch has been known to work closely with veterans so that they have the tools they need to train. In this way when a dog passes on, the veteran will be able to work with a new dog and they will know what to do. They can rescue a dog and train it and they will not have to wait for years to get a new dog.
Benefits
This has another very important benefit and that is that Guy and the team at Silver Paw are able to train far more dogs with their owners’ involvement. In many cases they would have had to have a smaller ratio of dogs to people and it would take much more time to train the dogs. By teaching the veterans they are giving them tools. By involving the person who needs the help, that person gets out of themselves and can continue to move forward with their life.
It is one of the ideas behind Canine Service Animals that they are used to help the veteran. In many cases a veteran has severe PTSD and they have great difficulty in going to places like a mall or even outside. While they were in the service they may have stayed busy and were constantly going fast. They had a battle buddy. A person who had their back and vice versa. The battle buddy system made the service member accountable to another human. This idea is the same with a dog. The owner has to look out for the dog and the dog looks out for its owner.
A service dog can do so many wonderful things. At times of high stress the dog can create a perimeter around his owner to protect him. The dog also can help the veteran to reintegrate. What usually happens is that the dog is the barrier between society and the veteran. Many veterans have lost limbs. They seem different than others. If a veteran has a dog with him, the dog draws attention away from the service member. Small children are far less afraid of approaching a disabled veteran if they have a dog. The dog can become a focal point to bring people around who do not focus on the veteran until the veteran is more comfortable. The system of battle buddy also comes into play. The veteran who has the dog also has to watch out for the dog. If a person who is having difficulty coping has to reach out and watch out for another, then they do not have time to focus on themselves. Rather than worry and have anxiety about their own condition, the Vet has to look out for their Service Canine. This is a model of how the newest wave of wellness happens, service work. By being of service to the very animal that serves them, the owner has less time to be anxious or worried.
One important idea behind training from the perspective of the Silver Paw Ranch is that the veterans who often have trouble being out in society once they are home from the battlefield are trained on how to act and what to say when they are out with the dog. For the first three months of training, the dog is not allowed to wear the service vest. Once the service vest is on, the dogs become different. They are never questioned. When they do not have the vest on, the owner may get questioned about the dog and they will have to respond. I am not sure but maybe it’s a trick. The veterans are given tools to be have the ability to begin interaction with people because they are willing to talk about the dogs. It also gives the veteran owner a sense of pride and accomplishment once the program deems it ok to place the vest on a dog. It is like a graduation of sorts but in the case of a dog the education will never stop.
A Service Member Teaches his Owner
Guy Sheble had worked with his dog Tex for nearly six years. When people asked him how long he had trained the dog to perform its service work, Guy told them that he had been training him the whole time. One day around March of 2016, Tex had run across the street and away from his owner Guy. Guy called the dog back and he came. As he did, a large semi-truck came along and hit Tex, instantly killing him. This was a devastating loss to Guy. He told me that many veterans come back from periods of service and they drown their problems in alcohol and drugs. Others withdraw from society and become mentally unstable. The dog is their link back to reality and away from self-destructive behavior. In Guys case he knew that this happens all too much. He had lost his long time service companion. He looked at me and told me in no uncertain terms that although this was like losing his best friend, he had thought about this loss and it made him grateful. In all the time that he had been training dogs, he was the first person to lose his. He was now able to put his teachings into action in his own life. He has moved forward and begun to heal by beginning to train his own new service canine.
On a final note with The Silver Paw Ranch is that they are moving forward with improving the ranch. They are working toward making a facility there that will house several veterans right on the property so they can come and stay and work with their dogs. They have been given the opportunity to match a fifty thousand dollar pledge to make the improvements. The Ranch still needs to raise the other money but Guy assures me that just has God has always looked out for him, he knows the money will be provided so that he can continue his work and make more service dogs available for disabled veterans at little to no cost to them. If you are interested in helping you can find out more on his website at http://silverpawranch.com.
The Point
The most important point of this article is that there are ways that veterans can get Canine Service Animals. There are people who are passionate about this work and that care about the dogs and their masters. Veterans can get the help they need. These Canine Service Animals really do help. There are organizations that will help someone in need. In cases like the silver Paw Ranch the costs to the veteran can be very little since most of the costs are paid by donations. The VA can point veterans in need of services in the right direction. But in much the same way the owner of Meatloaf and Mable struggled with them, I made five calls to the Walter Reed Medical Center to different areas so that I could find out more about their programs and I received no calls back. I would have hoped for any response even if it was to tell me that they could not help. I do know that they use Canine Service Animals to assist veterans, I just can’t be sure how or where they do it. I do not want to discourage any veteran from trying. The VA is a valuable resource for help to a disabled veteran. They just have to have patience in dealing with a system so large.
I think that my take away from this journey is that dogs really are man’s best friend. The Canine Service Animals have to be trained to be more than friends though. There are dogs available. There are times in which a veteran might not be able to work. So that if a veteran only wanted a dog to have been trained and they do not want to work with the dog, they can have that. If however the veteran wanted to learn how to train while the dog was also being trained and they could cope with this type of scenario, there are avenues for that as well. Dogs can be rescued from a shelter, they can be assessed and they can be trained. A dog’s value is much more than it being a friend to a disabled warrior. It is a tool to help them interact. To help them cope. To help them deal with emotions. To stabilize them. To help carry them through times when they are most needed. The dog becomes a firm anchor to the world around the veteran in which they may have been unable to act.
These Canine Service Animals are just like our soldiers. They go out into the trenches. They battle mental health issues. They combat stress and depression. They mobilize their masters and they are loyal and well trained. The only difference is that they are not fighting for you and me. They are fighting for their masters. Those brave men and women who so valiantly sacrifice for our country. We owe them so much. Each and every soldier who could use one of these buddies should have one. I hope that day comes about.