Left to right – Buddy Hayes, her Service Dog Ellie, Kristin Valent, physical therapist at NMCSD Comprehensive Combat and Complex Casualty Care (C5), and Facility Dog Tommy who is assigned with her there. (Click the image for a larger version.)

I wrote about Tommy right after his graduation back in May (“CCI Places First Facility Dog At A Major Wounded Warrior Medical Care Center”), and you can read lots about Buddy and Ellie if you look around – they’ve been on Montel, among other things.

Not only a great picture, but a perfect example of something I mentioned just the other day about not confusing how much you hear about a service dog organization’s program (particularly where veterans are concerned) with how good that program is.

There are many cases of highly trained service dogs (CCI dogs being the prime example) helping veterans like this that happen every day without a lotta fanfare, hype, or drama. No big publicity push from the organization that placed the dog, no big screaming headline about how a veteran and his dog are being unfairly treated by (fill in the blank), no big pronouncement from a celebrity or legislator about yet another new dog program that will help veterans – all stuff that I see daily and, frankly, am worn out on.

No, none of that – just someone’s personal picture in a group of pictures linked on Facebook that caught my eye because I know everyone in it and that I asked if I could use.

And a coupla working dogs working.

This is a huge placement and a major milestone for assistance dogs in the military medical world that’s been two years in the making – how very appropriate that it happened a little over a week before Memorial Day! What makes it so special is a combination of two things:

First, C5 is one of only three major active duty military medical centers where our most severely wounded warriors, primarily amputees, do their rehabilitation – Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, DC for those living back East; Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC/CFI) in San Antonio, TX for those living in the central US; and NMCSD/C5 in San Diego, CA for those living out West.

Second, CCI Facility Dogs are really a class unto themselves among dogs in the rehabilitative hospital environment. You can read more detail in the story I’ve provided in the links section below, but basically that’s because (1) Facility Dogs go through the same two-year process and learn all but three of the same commands as all other CCI assistance dogs, and (2) they are integrated into the ongoing daily rehab program and are trained to respond to the instructions of the therapists conducting that program.

(BTW, I realize that trying to differentiate Facility Dogs from other dogs can be very confusing for those not involved with assistance or therapy dogs, and can also seem disrespectful to those other dogs.  As someone with a Delta Society complex-qualified therapy dog who visits in a military hospital, that is definitely not my intent, but it’s essential to understand that difference – all the dogs are wonderful and do great things, but there’s really no comparison.)

Put those two things together and you have a truly one-of-a-kind combination.  Ideally, though, it won’t be that way much longer – I’m hoping that, on top of all the great work he is already doing, Tommy will be the breakthrough who will make it much easier to get this idea across now, and we will see CCI Facility Dogs in the other rehab centers as well.

Links:

Official website of Naval Medical Center San Diego, Comprehensive Combat and Complex Casualty Care:

http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmcsd/Patients/Pages/ComprehensiveCombatandComplexCasualtyCare.aspx

“Tommy Time” – fantastic interview with Tommy’s puppy raisers with many background details at Ross’ DogBlog:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/family/19458606/detail.html

Short but detailed article about Scully, a CCI Facility Dog at WakeMed Rehab Hospital in Raleigh, NC, that will tell you everything you need to know about Facility Dogs:

http://www.wakemed.org/body.cfm?id=832

Pictures from the graduation:

Ken Sergi: 

http://www.shutterfly.com/pro/KenSergi/ccigrad051609

Carol-Ann DeMaio Goheen:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZN2jJq4YtGLCWg