Service dogs help heal veterans suffering from PTSD

Veteran Deanna Garcia and her service dog Missy were recognized Friday as the 300th team to graduate from Northwest Battle Buddies during a ceremony honoring the group’s 293rd through 302nd dogs.

Shannon Walker founded Northwest Battle Buddies in 2012 after three decades working with dogs. She said her father, a Korean War veteran, pushed her toward helping veterans.

“My dad taught me to believe in God, family and country, and when you’re in the presence of a veteran, you’re in the presence of a hero,” Walker said. “He served during the Korean War, but he never considered himself a hero. But there wasn’t one time that I would see him shake another veteran’s hand and thank them for their service without a quivering chin.”

Walker, who also runs a for-profit dog training business called Man’s Best Friend in Battle Ground, said the idea for Northwest Battle Buddies began when a veteran named Kevin Williams came in asking for his personal dog, Sammy, to be trained as a service animal.

“I’d trained service dogs before, but I never trained a service dog for a veteran battling PTSD,” Walker said. “So I just did what I do. I assessed the dog. I found out what his needs were. I found out what she needed a task for, and I took her. For me, it was business as usual, until it came time to train with him.”

Walker said Williams’ progress pushed her to expand her work with veterans.

“In my simple-minded thinking, I thought if I just adopt dogs out of shelters, I can train them and I can gift them and I can say, ‘Thank you for my freedom,’ ” Walker said. “And today, that is 302 dogs ago.”

Williams had been a front gunner in the U.S. Army and returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. He told Walker that he and members of his unit survived a major firefight overseas, but six later died by suicide after coming home. A therapist told him to consider getting a service dog, she said.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 6,407 U.S. veterans died by suicide in 2022, an average of 17.6 per day.

Northwest Battle Buddies’ graduation Friday at Royal Oaks Country Club in Vancouver recognized the 293rd through 302nd service dogs matched with veterans.

Walker said the dogs are trained to help veterans with PTSD through grounding, deep pressure therapy, tactile reinforcement and breathing exercises. She said petting sessions can trigger physiological changes that help veterans regulate stress.

Walker said one common training exercise is taking veterans to Vancouver Mall to practice coping techniques in a crowded, high-stress environment. Staff track heart rates and observe behavior to measure progress.

DL Thomas, 45, a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman, and Dodi Lewis, 45, who served as military police in the Army, both completed their training with Walker about five years ago. Thomas was paired with chocolate Labrador retriever Atlas, and Lewis was paired with golden retriever Diamond.

Lewis said she first approached Walker while looking for a service dog for her husband, who also served. Thomas, originally from Biloxi, Miss., said a friend recommended Walker based on his experiences returning from Iraq.

“I watched a lot of bad things happen, and it’s not natural to see the things I had to see,” Thomas said. “I needed help. The world was different and I was different, and I needed a way to be able to progress in life and do so successfully.”

Lewis said she didn’t fully recognize her own needs at first.

“I was actually looking for my husband, because I didn’t realize that I was in trouble or anything like that,” she said. “But I had kids to worry about, a husband to worry about and I was just caught up in all that, and I wanted my husband to be able to be better and have a better life.”

Lewis, who served at Abu Ghraib, said her husband later encouraged her to get her own service dog. She recalled the first time she tried grounding techniques with Phoenix, her husband’s dog.

“It’s really cool to think about the difference it made from how I was feeling before to just absorbing her fur and smell and the way she felt and how quickly things went down and de-escalated,” Lewis said.

Thomas and Lewis said veterans are assigned dogs based on psychological profiles. Lewis said Phoenix’s calm demeanor suits her husband, while Diamond’s more outgoing nature helps her push into new situations.

“Each one of us has a different story. Each one of us walks a different walk or journey or path,” Thomas said. “I work for the city of Portland. I need a dog that I can take in public that has a good demeanor with a good nature. I’m a big man, and if you give me a pitbull or something like that, then no one’s going to want to be around me when I have a very open and public job.”

Both Lewis and Thomas said one of their biggest challenges is asking the public to respect boundaries around service dogs.

“People think that they’re just strictly not able to have fun and loves,” Lewis said of the service dogs. “It’s like, ‘No. They can, just from me and not from you.’ ”

Veterans walked to the podium with their dogs during the ceremony, offering emotional thanks to Walker and Northwest Battle Buddies staff. In the audience were family members, friends and past graduates, including a Vietnam War veteran who was the group’s 100th graduate with his dog Bomber, and a two-tour Iraq veteran who was the group’s 200th graduate paired with his dog Twitch in 2023.

As Garcia and Missy, a chocolate Labrador retriever, approached the stage, Walker spoke about Garcia’s strength and the work she put into training Northwest Battle Buddies’ 300th dog.

“I’m standing here today as a testament of God’s grace and God’s blessing on my life. I have been struggling with PTSD for a number of years now, and the loneliness is profound, the internal pain is unbearable and the physical symptoms are debilitating,” Garcia said during her speech.

“Due to my continued struggle with PTSD, I began my search for a service dog. I did so because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the thoughts that occupy my mind, reminding me of all the difficult things I have seen and endured,” she said.

Garcia said even traveling to the ceremony was difficult because of ongoing symptoms and fear that her work with Missy would be interrupted. She said that through the success of working with Walker and the staff at Northwest Battle Buddies, she is able to move forward and stand tall once again.

“I’m so grateful that I came because I can honestly say that my time with Northwest Battle Buddies is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I can say this because Missy brings me hope — hope to be a better mother, wife and friend. I hope to live again, to try new experiences, to be grateful to be alive when the sun rises.”