K9s For Warriors: Veterans Living with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (VIDEO)

There are many people who welcome their husbands and wives back home from war. A lot of these women/men realized their spouses are not the same person. One wife said "I remember the first time I was woken by my husband's awful, blood-curdling scream. Suddenly he was back in the war zone with a gun in his hand and a woman in front of him, covered in blood. He squeezed my hand tightly and wouldn’t let go until morning. I recall thinking, ‘By day he’s my brave ex-soldier; but by night, who is this man?" This is one of the nice stories of a wife, here is a more dreadful one "My husband's condition reached a crisis point after he’d returned to civilian life. One night he was in the mood for an argument which was not the norm from him before fighting in the war, I had to work the next day, so I went to sleep in our spare room. He followed me and suddenly his fist came from nowhere and smashed into my face, breaking all my front teeth. He’d never laid a finger on me before.”

Many of these veterans loose their families after returning home due to their overwhelming depression, aggressiveness, anger outbursts, withdraws, or suicidal attempts because families cannot handle the drastic changes in behaviors of their love ones. Their husband or father may leave for war being loving, supportive, and caring, but return having nightmares and hallucinations to anxiety and inability to control emotions, and is often accompanied by alcoholism and substance abuse. According to the VA, a veteran commits suicide in the U.S. every 65 minutes, so know PTSD is a serious matter.

Most mental health providers try to use drugs to help manage the symptoms, but many of the veterans do not like how the medications make them feel or having the feelings of being zoned out is not an option. There are many approaches mental health providers can use to help veterans, some are finding little progress, but K9s For Warriors founder Shari Duval decided to use certified service dogs and believes the new complex will be the "leading PTSD recovery center" in the nation. As a mental health therapists who work with clients with PTSD and apart of the national non-profit organization Give An Hour that provide free mental health care to veterans I encourage you to be open to non-traditional approaches such as K9s For Warriors. If you are a veteran or have a love one who is a veteran please do research on K9s For Warriors.  Click here to view Give An Hour Video if you are a veteran and will like to receive mental health services.

K9s For Warriors is dedicated to providing service canines to our warriors suffering from post-traumatic stress and/or traumatic brain injury as a result of military service post 9/11. Their goal is to give a new leash on life to rescue dogs and military heroes, empowering warriors to return to civilian life with dignity and independence. Watch Erick Scott story below to understand how K9s For Warriors works or how the service dog calm's Erick Scott PTSD reaction. If you don't see the video below click HERE.