As Matt explains in the video, he’s a wounded warrior who was paralyzed with the exception of his left arm by a sniper’s bullet near Ramadi, Iraq on February 24, 2007.  You can read more details about that in a number of places, including here: “After Surviving Sniper’s Bullet, Soldier Looks to Future”

Matt and Tracy have been super representatives for wounded warriors and their families in general and a number of organizations as well, including CCI, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Homes For Our Troops – pretty much anything they are involved with.

This is another placement that I’d describe exactly the same way I did Andrew Pike’s (Andrew and Matt are good friends, BTW) back  late last year:

“Every Service Dog Placement With A Veteran Should Be As Great As This One”

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/we-keep-moving/videos/santa-fe-new-mexico-video/index.aspx

“I’m probably the only person you’ll ever meet who opted to have their leg amputated so they could play hockey, and that was my whole goal. I spent two and a half years at Walter Reed, and everyone there knew that my first goal in life was to get back on the ice.”  – SFC Joe Bowser

Read the whole thing here: “The Warriors Way”

When you see someone talking about service dogs for veterans, I want the image of this team to immediately pop into your head, because this is the model, on both ends of the leash.  Beyond just being a great story on its face, as you read it, compare what you see here – and, just as importantly, don’t see – with some of the other very visible “service dogs for veterans” stories of late.

Andrew Pike is a young Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran from Idaho who was paralyzed below the waist by a sniper in Palaji, Iraq on March 26, 2007.  He graduated with Service Dog Yazmin from Team Training at the Canine Companions for Independence Northwest Regional Center in Santa Rosa, CA on November 21st.

You can read all about them here:

“A wounded vet and black lab become partners”

Please watch the following two videos which will tell you even more. (Guess it’s not my day for embedding videos since I couldn’t get either one to do it, which is very odd.)  First one was taken during Team Training; second one was filmed after they returned home to Idaho.

“Iraq War Vet gets service dog from CCI”

“Andrew Pike: New life after the war“

You can make your own list, of course, but here’s just a few things I’m hoping you noted and will file away for comparison:

• Very calm dog under all circumstances – no evidence of stress, such as panting or pawing at her human partner.

• Dog under control by the human at all times, and that means a leash – shoot, Andrew even held onto the leash when Yazmin was at home – now THAT’s control.

• Dog actually performing physical tasks for the veteran, e.g., opening doors.

• Calm, stable, grounded veteran discussing his future in very positive terms.

• Veteran who’s very active in nonpartisan positively focused wounded veterans organizations like Paralyzed Veterans of America and US Paralympics.

I know there are more, but you get the idea.

Not really much I can add other than to say Andrew is a wonderful example to me of someone being positive under far tougher circumstances than I hope I ever have to deal with, and a great reminder of why those of us involved with CCI do what we do.

“Homeless Dogs Help Healing Troops”

The reality is a service dog isn’t necessary or appropriate for every wounded veteran (or anyone with a disability, for that matter) – not the popular thing to say, but the truth. So much of the popular public opinion I see now comes off as “Hey, let’s just give every wounded veteran a service dog and that’ll fix things”, especially when we’re talking about mental health issues like post-traumatic stress as opposed to physical injuries.  Well-intentioned, no doubt, but misguided, nonetheless – it’s just not that simple nor necessarily the way to go.

There are a myriad of factors involved in providing someone with a no-joke, for-real, fully functioning service dog, and, done right, it’s a time-consuming, extremely thorough, and usually expensive process that requires a lifetime commitment from everyone involved. Programs like this one are great because they provide troops who don’t have a more serious need with so much of what they do need, cost very little, if anything, and all of the factors specifically associated with a service dog are taken away.  They also have the potential to not divert a lot of funding and effort away from areas where, in my view, they are better expended, e.g., the training of full-up service dogs for those people who have physical injuries as their primary issue.

No question whatsoever that there are still many veterans who really need and would benefit from a service dog, and I remain convinced that we still aren’t reaching those with severe physical disabilities, particularly the relatively younger group of OEF/OIF veterans. But I’m also convinced there are a whole lotta people that don’t need that level of support, and we need to be talking about these kind of programs first before making the big jump to right away talking about service dogs for everybody.

U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Chris Lalonde, center, holds his military working dog, Sgt. Maj. Fosco, and jumpmaster Kirby Rodriguez behind them, as they free fall through the air making history with the military’s first tandem airborne jump from an altitude of 12,500 feet on Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Sept. 18, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Vince Vander Maarel

Lest those folks up the road from me in Denver, the American Humane Association (the “no animals were harmed in the making of this film” people), get nervous, check out the photo and video of what Fosco was doing right after they landed:

“Dog parachutes as part of Ft. Leonard Wood competition”

How cool is that??!!??

Complete photo essay is here:

http://www.defenselink.mil/photoessays/photoessaySS.aspx?id=1433

“MWDs ‘out of the doghouse’ at JBB”

It doesn’t surprise me – I know enough handlers to know how they are about their dogs, and the stories over the years about them sleeping with the dogs, usually under hostile conditions in the field, are legion.

But there’s just something about the image of a big Lab out there taking over a bed just like they do everywhere.

Not that that would ever happen around here, of course.

1st Lt. John Reed, a Milton, Del., native and platoon leader with 15th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, attempts to evade Capka, a military working dog, during a demonstration at Forward Operating Base Warrior in Kirkuk, Iraq, Aug. 1.  (Click on photo for larger version)

There are military working dog articles on the military websites (e.g., Defenselink.mil, Army.mil, AF.mil) all the time with a lotta great pictures – this one just struck me as funny.

If you read the accompanying article, you’ll see this was actually part of a demo as well as a little fun time for the dogs and troops – they asked for volunteers who thought they could outrun the dogs:

“Military working dogs give Soldiers run for their money”

I always like seeing Ray Allen equipment in these pictures, too.  In case you don’t know, Ray Allen is the premier manufacturer of working dog equipment, and has been located here in Colorado Springs for over 60 years.

I use a very, very nice Ray Allen leash – the 6 foot long, 3/4 inch wide version of this Latigo Leather Braided Obedience Lead – don’t know how I ever got along without it:

Take a look around at their site – not only a lotta great equipment, but many great K-9 pictures and stories as well:

Ray Allen Professional K-9 Equipment

Read more here:
Double Amputee Skydives at Walter Reed
Dana Bowman

Here’s a must-watch three minute video:

You can read more details of his actions that day at Blackfive:

“SFC Jared Monti – Medal Of Honor (Afghanistan)”