ACROSS AMERICA — President Joe Biden is expected to sign legislation aimed at reducing veteran suicides, occurring at the alarming rate of almost 18 a day, and pairing veterans such as Becca Stephens with service dogs to manage and live with PTSD.
The PAWS Act — as the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers legislation is known — directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop a five-year pilot program to provide dog training and other services to veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome, traumatic brain injury or who survived military sexual trauma.
Rory Diamond, the chief executive at K9s for Warriors, called the legislation an encouraging first step to give veterans the services they need to heal from the invisible injuries of war.
K9s for Warriors, the largest provider of service dogs for veterans, and others with similar missions “struggled for five years to convince the VA that dogs can help veterans with PTSD,” he said.
“There’s a mountain of evidence from the 1980s and 1990s of PTSD in warriors, and another mountain of evidence that service dogs can help,” he told Patch. “There really is no excuse for not having been part of the solution sooner.”
The VA finally acknowledged in a study this year that veterans paired with trained service dogs thought about suicide less often and saw an improvement in their PTSD symptoms than if they’d been paired with an emotional support or therapy dog.
“Everyone knew it was happening,” Diamond said of veteran suicides, but until now, “no one had a solution — or was even really trying.”
Dogs Only Part Of It
Becca Stephens was barely sober in 2018 when she was paired with Bobbi, her now 4-year-old service dog. She’d been out of the Army, where she was an E4 specialist, for seven years by that point.
Her tour of duty had included 12 months in Iraq. It was a time of “hypervigilance day in and day out” as rocket-propelled grenade explosions rumbled in the background. The sounds, and the anxiety, came home with her to Clearwater, Florida, in 2011.
“I had a lot of lingering issues that stemmed from that deployment — nightmares, isolation, depression, mood swings,” Stephens told Patch.
A “full-blown heroin addiction” that ruled her life for seven years started started as most do — legally, with a prescription for opiates. She went through rehab a couple of times to kick it but found herself using again when life began to close in. A good friend was murdered.
“I was just unable to cope with the things that were going on,” Stephens said, “and I was basically contemplating suicide.”
Suicide among veterans with PTSD is a national crisis. An average of at least 17 vets a day take their lives, down from 20 a day often cited by officials, but that’s mainly due to how the VA calculates averages, according to Military Times.
Bobbi and K9s for Warriors saved her from becoming one of these grim statistics, Stephens said.
“The dogs are only 50 percent of the program,” Diamond said. “We also make sure the warrior has all the things needed to stay out of a crisis. The dogs are a critical piece of the puzzle. We can’t have one without another.”
Stephens didn’t have much of a support system when she found K9s for Warriors, which offers an intense, three-week residential training at its national headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Florida, and satellite locations in Alachua, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas.
“A lot of us are coming from really bad situations,” she said, “but the love and devotion is palpable from the second you walk onto campus.
“The organization provided me with the people, places and things I needed to create stability,” she said. “Everyone involved is either a veteran who struggled with PTSD or has a family member with PTSD. The people there are only there to watch you succeed.”
What Bobbi Does
Stephens has been sober for three years now. Bobbi offers the same companionship as a comfort dog — “Dogs are someone who doesn’t care about your past,” she explained, “and as long as you’re there taking responsibility, they’re going to be there being your service dog” — but there’s more than that to the K9s for Warriors program.
“It teaches the vet how to use the dog as a tool to help reintegrate into society,” she said.
Service dogs for veterans are taught specific commands to help veterans manage PTSD symptoms in public.
One example: It’s uncomfortable for many veterans to stand with their backs turned to a crowd, Stephens said, and the simple command “look” tells Bobbi to walk around her, then sit down facing away from Stephens and ready to alert her if anyone approaches.
“Heel” tells Bobbi to keep pace with Stephens as they’re walking. “Dogs can sense if your anxiety is climbing or if you’re tensing up,” Stephens explained. “If they sense something is wrong, they let you know.”
When the command “block” is given, the dog “stands between you and someone you’re speaking with, puts its body between you and the other person and it’s not going anywhere,” Stephens said. “You have your own space, your own comfort level.”
And “my lap” tells the dog to intervene to stop a full-blown anxiety or panic attack.
“When they hear that, they get in your lap and force you to focus on them, eye to eye,” Stephens said. “It’s just you and your dog, and it takes your mind off the situation: ‘I can calm down. My dog is not tense. I should calm down.’ ”
Such anecdotal stories are supported by research.
“These dogs are at the warrior’s side 24/7,” Diamond said. “They help the warrior be in public. When they’re afraid to be at a supermarket or eat at a restaurant without having a panic attack, they focus on the dog instead. Their anxiety goes down, they stop sweating and their heart rate returns to normal.”
K9 for Warriors says 92 percent of its graduates reported lower medication use and 82 percent said they thought about suicide less often after getting their dogs. Veterans who got an average 2.7 hours of restorative sleep a night before they got their dogs saw that nearly double two weeks after getting their dogs.
A 2018 study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical found veterans reap a host of benefits when they’re paired with a service dog, including:
- Lower overall symptoms of PTSD.
- Lower levels of depression.
- Higher levels of life satisfaction.
- Higher overall psychological well-being.
- Lower levels of social isolation and greater ability to participate in social activities.
- Less absenteeism from work due to health among those who were employed.
In a second 2018 study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, researchers measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the saliva of veterans with PTSD. Those who had service dogs registered cortisone levels closer to those of a standard healthy adult.
A Sense Of Pride
Stephens and another veteran testified before Congress about how their service dogs have helped them and why other veterans should be able to access the same services under the PAWS Act.
It was important public service, she said, but also a reminder that she has vital story to tell in the historical compendium of America’s involvement in foreign wars.
“Suicide is an epidemic,” she said. “When they bring vets like us to these types of events, it reiterates how important we are to the program, and how valued our stories actually are.
“We have such a sense of pride and hope that we couldn’t have gotten through medication and therapy at the VA. I never felt a sense of pride in taking medication. I never felt like my opinions were valued after therapy. Integrating as a valued member of the community is second to none.”
Diamond is a dog lover, but he’s not a veteran. He was working at a “fancy law firm” seven years ago and picked up some pro bono work for K9s for Warriors. He saw the need for the organization reflected in the spiraling veteran suicide rate and saw the group’s potential.
He was working in the George W. Bush White House during the 9/11 terror attacks. Many of them enlisted in the military in a wave of post 9/11 patriotism.
“A lot of my friends went away and didn’t come back, or they came back with invisible injuries,” Diamond said. “This was some way to give back.”
K9 for Warriors raises its $12 million a year annual budget and provides service to about 180 in a typical year, though the COVID-19 pandemic has cut that by roughly half. It raises money through a variety of events, from cupcake sales to road races.
Without programs like K9s for Warriors, veterans “would have to come up with the money on their own, which I think is criminal,” Diamond said. “We’ve met several who’ve spent 15 or 20 thousand dollars of their family’s money or money through GoFundMes, but they don’t get the wraparound services and support they need.”
Even with the pilot project and the funding that will come with it, nonprofits like K9s for Warriors are dependent on the charity of others.
“Every second of every day, we enjoy the liberty they have fought for, and it’s a small ask to help them get back to a life of dignity and independence.”
K9s for Warriors serves veterans in every state and has chapters in 32 U.S. cities. Contributions may be made here.
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