JOPLIN, Mo. — Not only can dogs provide unconditional love to owners, they can also save the life of someone that’s been through trauma most of us can’t imagine. They can be man’s best friend, and they can also save his or her life, and now there’s clinical proof.
“Where all were your deployments?” asked Stuart Price, reporting.
“Three tours to Iraq,” replied Jimmy Burgess, Executive Director of Heartland Canines for Veterans.
A recent study by the National Institutes of Health is the largest of its kind to date. It included 156 military members and veterans diagnosed with PTSD. After just three months with a specially trained animal, 81 of those participants said they experienced much lower PTSD symptom severity, anxiety, depression, and less social isolation compared with veterans in the same study that didn’t have a service animal.
“It’s something we’ve been preaching and pushing. When you show results and you see the true results that come from service dogs and how they help veterans, I was kind of surprised it took this long for it to get recognized,” said Burgess.
He was in special operations in the U.S. Army and is now the Executive Director of Heartland Canines for Veterans, a nonprofit that provides veterans with service animals. In addition to the results of the study, he says the special bond between his own service animal, Riley, and veterans who care for them can actually help prevent suicide.
“And having a service dog gives that team member, that veteran, another team member they have to take care of. So the way the brain works is I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to commit suicide because then who takes care of my team member,” said Burgess.
Heartland Canines formed in 2015 and to date has provided over 40 veterans with service dogs at no cost to the veteran. They’re able to do so at a cost of about $19,000 per animal.
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