After watching this dog save a suicidal veteran, Louise Thayer shares her experience with PTSD, veterans, and service animals.
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There’s no automatic reset button for a brain too used to running in high gear, let alone for a body too used to the rigors of war.
At the end of active duty, the discharged service member can set down his or her pack and remove cammies, but where they go from there is entirely dependent upon where they’ve been and more vitally, how they’ve processed that experience.
I saw up close and personal the extreme bond these guys had with their animals.
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I will clarify, I was never in active service with any branch but as a prior military spouse who also worked for both the USMC and the Army, I have some experience with the night terrors that my former husband came back from Afghanistan and Iraq displaying. I was also employed by the Army veterinary division and our clinic’s primary MOS (role) was readiness for the military working dogs. I saw up close and personal the extreme bond these guys had with their animals.
Catching a fist as it flies towards your face is never a pleasant experience. We were briefed that this might happen. The nightmares come unbidden and are a necessary part of mental release as the autonomic nervous system attempts to shift from sympathetic high alert, (fight or flight state, most often the former) to a parasympathetic resting state.
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For my ex-husband as for tens of thousands like him, there is no simple way to transition. No discredit to any of them that their bodies and minds continue to operate on high alert long after active threat is over.
Back then, I often wondered if it would ever be possible to switch from having to be in a constant state of vigilance to simply sitting and peacefully watching the world go by. How do you go see your son play football and not eyeball the crowd for potential threat after months in the theater of war?
I’ve fought my own battle with PTSD and extreme anxiety for two decades now. I still fight to remain in the reasonably settled limbo I’ve subsequently reached. Aiming for ‘normal’ is excruciatingly difficult when you have no known concept of how ‘normal’ should feel.
It’s a frustrating and demoralizing enough experience when you’re a civilian, let alone when you’re a warrior who has been actively conditioned to never demonstrate fear or weakness.
…it’s training that has been implanted on many levels…
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It’s not simply machismo, (although of course the culture of bravado overtly prevails within such brotherhoods) it’s survival and more than that even, it’s training that has been implanted on many levels of consciousness for the sake of saving lives.
As much as I’ve felt threatened by unseen forces and had the life force sucked out of me by unknown enemies from within, I have never known the possibility of having a sniper train his rifle on me. I haven’t driven my car expecting that at any moment an IED might rip out the undercarriage and my guts along with it. In the past I’ve felt something akin to evisceration but I have not cradled my dying brother or rescued his limb from the side of the road as I’ve come under fire.
Walk a mile in those boots? Most of us never can and never would.
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The concept of service animals helping veterans makes a world of sense to me. My own animals have saved me more than I can ever thank them for. When all I could do was lie on a sofa, hating myself but unable to change, I still had to walk the dogs. I still needed to feed my horse and sometimes, if I was fortunate, the simple acts of moving, of caring for another being, became the equivalent of a wild animal shaking off the danger after the lion threat has passed by.
I could often find relief in simply stepping outside my fugue state to throw a ball and watch canine happiness at work. I could catch the joy in a wagging tail and panting face. I could feel the soothing heartbeat of another creature whose only expectation of me was to simply lie down as they curled in close.
We are not so equipped to process trauma as your average gazelle. In our daily lives we toe the cultural line and pretend, consciously or otherwise, that the threats we feel as real are not embedding themselves in our psyches. It’s precisely because our military is conditioned to never acknowledge fear openly, that it becomes entrenched within their cells instead.
Where do men like Erick Scott find relief?
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On a cellular level, where do men like Erick Scott find relief? I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to watch the segment of this interview in which his service dog, trained by K9s for Warriors, reacts to his increased anxiety by contacting his face.
This gesture with most pet dogs could be mistaken for unruly behavior. However, in this highly trained animal simply the gesture meant that regardless of the camera being pointed at him or the presence of strangers, he was still highly attuned to the mental state of his owner.
Animals have the innate ability to sense emotions. We do too, but we are often seemingly unaware of rising blood pressure, increased rate of speech, and the quickening of heart beat until we are already in a state of distress.
With ‘post trauma’ we can intellectualize that there is no current threat but we can’t (yet) embody it.
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Other people can, in a very well meaning manner, often exacerbate these symptoms with questions. “What’s wrong?” being one of the hardest to answer. With ‘post trauma’ we can intellectualize that there is no current threat but we can’t (yet) embody it. Our bodies respond in primal ways to make sure we are ready for action. It’s a cumulative process we might need help to even recognize as a problem. We don’t know ‘what’s wrong’, we only know that everything is.
When Gumbo licks the face of Erick Scott he transcends questions. He brings his caretaker right back to an awareness of his current surroundings and to the fact that he senses (without judgement) a change.
It’s to Erick’s credit that he is so astute in quickly recognizing what his dog is telling him. This sends a signal to his brain that helps form a new neural pathway. There are proven and hope-inspiring ways to change our own neurology with the right intercession at the appropriate time.
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Animals such as the service dogs provided by K9s for Warriors act as a vital link between two worlds; the world in which constant vigilance can lead to lifelong stress or suicide and the world in which we could simply be sitting in the sunshine with our dog.
Snuffling noses heal everything 🙂 Thank you so much for your feedback. I’m very glad that you found resonance.
Thank you Louise.
I was a veterinarian in the military and was always amazed by the bond between handler and dog. The human animal bond can be unbelievably strong. As a vet, I saw many despondent owners whose lifeline was their animal. I know in my own trials and bounts of despair my dogs intuitively have known just what to do. Those eyes, those snuffling noses and those affectionate licks make a big difference.
The power of dogs to me is underlined by the revelation that when you spell D–O-G backwards you get GOD.