Like many businesses, theaters have faced significant disruptions in recent years on the heels of a global pandemic coupled with economic difficulties that impact millions of people. Filmmaker Tracie Hotchner believes firmly in the power of community in film viewership, which was one of the reasons she started the NYC Dog Film Festival, an annual competition that features independent films about dogs, nine years ago. This year’s festival takes place on Oct. 24 and the event is Hotchner’s way of giving life to a threatened industry while promoting unity through film.
Not only that, but the festival’s Service Dog Salute category, which explores the ways in which service dogs assist veterans suffering from PTSD, seeks to support the veteran community through education and funding. The category is sponsored by Purina Dog Chow and is overseen by festival beneficiary Shannon Walker, the executive director of the Association of Service Dog Providers and founder of Northwest Battle Buddies, a nonprofit organization that trains dogs to become PTSD service dogs, and also trains veterans to handle their dogs and work together as a team. Walker’s firsthand experience with service dogs and the hurdles associated with their training motivated her to give back to veterans.
“A lot of people love the idea of a service dog for a veteran, but they really have no idea how hard it is to make that team work long term,” Walker said, adding that the cost of training a service dog can total $25,000 or more. Her program also spans five months—a considerable chunk of time to devote to training. Even so, for Walker, the work is worth it because she’s seen the way that veterans’ lives are changed when they’re paired with an effective service dog.
“I’ve been a dog trainer for 30 years now, and 13 years ago, when a veteran came in…wanting his own dog to be trained to serve him with his PTSD, it opened up my world,” she said. “And when I trained this dog for him, I saw him change.”
It’s clear that human-animal relationships change lives, and highlighting this dynamic is the overall point of the NYC Dog Film Festival itself. According to the festival website, the event’s mission is “to celebrate the bond between dogs and people around the world, as seen through the work of brilliant filmmakers.”
The festival premiers in New York each year, then travels to cities across the United States, and raises awareness for local animal shelters by donating 10% of every ticket to shelters in each city. This year’s NYC premier will donate 50% of all ticket sales to the Association for Service Dog Providers, and features 17 unique films, all centered around dogs.
“The films run the gamut from animated to dramatic narrative films with a script and actors, and documentaries, and they’re everything from very serious to very playful to silly to fun,” Hotchner said. “And they come from all over the world. So it’s quite an extraordinary look at how people cohabitate with their dogs, or the sports that they do with them, or their grief and how they’ve dealt with it when they’ve lost a dog. There are many different iterations of how people express that human-animal bond on film.”
Service Dog Salute
The human-animal bond shared between service dogs and their handlers is certainly strong enough to warrant its own category within the festival—especially considering the stakes of these relationships within the veteran community. PTSD is relatively common amongst veterans, impacting anywhere from 11-20% of the veteran population, and is often associated with trauma experienced during combat. However, these numbers are likely lower than reality, as veterans are less likely to come forward and seek help. Some estimates reveal that 87% of combat veterans have witnessed a traumatic event during combat, and symptoms can vary widely from self-destructive behaviors, flashbacks, insomnia, and more. Walker notes that loud sounds like a car backfiring or even a baby crying can trigger panic attacks in public, which oftentimes binds veterans to their homes. In other words, the effects of PTSD can be severely isolating, and even fatal.
“When you’re dealing with PTSD, you’re dealing with isolation,” Walker explained. “You’re dealing with panic, panic attacks, you’re dealing with night terrors…and what our service dogs end up doing, is: they wake our veterans up from nightmares. A lot of our service dogs are alerting during a panic attack. They’re alerting on cortisol and adrenaline, much like a seizure detection dog.”
According to the 2021 AAHA Working, Assistance, and Therapy Dog Guidelines, service dogs are “individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.” Although PTSD service dogs live with their handlers, they are not considered pets. For a veteran suffering from PTSD, they are what Walker considers a “lifeline” that helps them complete daily tasks those without PTSD take for granted.
“As a civilian, you know, we’re like, ‘Ok, I have to go get milk at the grocery store’” Walker explained. “‘So I’m just going to run in and run out.’ We don’t even think anything of it. Whereas the veteran, they’re like, ‘Ok, when do I need to go? How many people are going to be there? How fast can I get in and out?’ Because they have to strategize their life out in public anywhere. And so, they learn to use the dogs throughout [that process], and our veterans call it their mission.”
Service dog requirements
Hotchner notes that, although there aren’t specific breed requirements for PTSD service dogs, a strong physical presence helps because a dog might need to ground an individual experiencing anxiety or other PTSD symptoms. Grounding techniques service dogs perform can include nudging or pawing a handler, tugging on their sleeve, or stepping in between a handler and a source of anxiety, like a crowd. And a strong sense of smell is a must.
“A person experiencing PTSD gives off an odor the way someone in a diabetic emergency does,” Hotchner explained. “And the dog is actually smelling that. They don’t have ESP. They’re not mind readers. They’re not psychic. They actually know physiologically that the veteran is suffering.”
Walker notes that service dogs and the programs that help provide them offer a litany of benefits for veterans dealing with PTSD. “The list goes on and on,” Walker said. “It makes them present in their families. It makes them present in the communities and productive to where they’re truly living their lives healthier and freer.”
Even so, specially trained service dogs can be hard to come by—it’s estimated that only 1% of veterans who want a service dog end up getting one. This was one of the primary reasons Walker felt compelled to work with the NYC Dog Film Festival.
“It’s all a part of bringing an education and an awareness because we have a silent epidemic of thousands of veterans dying invisible in their home in the middle of the night,” Walker said. “And one of the most powerful things about our service dogs is, in the midnight hour, when nobody else is around, they are saving our veterans’ lives. I wake up to text messages from our veterans and they will tell me ‘I’m enjoying another sunrise today because my broken brain decided to end it, and my service dog stopped me.’”
Hope for the future
Through Walker’s and Hotchner’s efforts, they aim to educate and raise awareness about the positive impact service dogs have on veterans and to show them that there is hope amid their struggles.
“We’re always trying to find ways to educate the public, educate our veterans,” Walker said. “But the most important thing is to make sure veterans that are hearing all of this know that there is hope and healing on the end of a leash.”
The NYC Dog Film Festival begins at 6:00 PM at the SVA Theatre located at 333 West 23rd Street, New York, New York. Admission is free for all military personnel (active duty and veterans), and tickets are available here. To see if the festival is coming to your city, check in here regularly for updates.
In partnership with the NYC Dog Film Festival, Purina Dog Chow is donating money to organizations that train service dogs. For every view of their educational video about how service dogs help veterans with PTSD, Purina will donate $5 (up to $75,000) to these organizations. Watch the video here.
Photo credit: © Jamie Casper via Getty Images Plus
Disclaimer: The views expressed, and topics discussed, in any NEWStat column or article are intended to inform, educate, or entertain, and do not represent an official position by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) or its Board of Directors.
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