A boon to veterans suffering from mental illness and trauma, trained service dogs from NW Battle Buddies in Battle Ground lend their paws to support those scarred physically or mentally post-service.
Established in 2012, the Battle Ground-based organization provides service dogs to deployed military personnel, veterans, those honorably discharged and other military members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) across the country.
“We’ve gifted 224 service dogs in the past 12 years,” Shannon Walker, CEO and founder of NW Battle Buddies, said.
Canines trained by NW Battle Buddies staff receive at least 360 hours of rigorous training, Walker said. The dogs learn how to identify adrenaline spikes during episodes of anxiety or fear and wake their veteran from nightmares or sooth PTSD symptoms. Trained canines can perform pressure therapy with their bodies, providing a physical stimulus to relieve their veteran’s anxiety. They can also act as a physical barrier, placing themselves between their veteran and environmental stressors.
After a dog completes its training and is ready for service, veterans travel to Clark County to meet their dog. The veterans are then trained on how to work with their dogs.
“We train the dogs for five months professionally before they even meet their veteran. Then the veterans come and train for five weeks,” Walker said.
After their training, the veteran and canine graduate from the NW Battle Buddies Program and return home. The training program is free for the veteran, and training recertification is provided at no cost to the veteran and dog as needed.
Battle Buddies service dogs are often used for grounding therapy, a self-soothing technique where veterans keep themselves calm and aware of their surroundings during a panic attack. During a recent training session at a grocery store, Walker noticed a veteran had begun to panic. With her guidance, the veteran used his dog as a tool to practice a grounding exercise. By petting his dog, listening to its breathing and smelling its fur, the veteran was able to calm himself.
“For him, just going to the store and walking around with a cart was bringing this kind of visceral response in his body. But, he was able to use his dog as the tool she is, to complete the task at hand,” Walker said.
Walker said she has witnessed incredible success for veterans paired with service dogs. Many have improved their mental health and become more present for their loved ones, Walker said.
“The whole point is that it’s about the individual. They’re striving to be their best self so that they can be the father or daughter or son or husband for their family,” Walker said.
Many veterans lack support after returning from war, and some fall into despair and commit suicide, Walker said. None of the veterans with a canine companion from NW Battle Buddie have done so, Walker said.
With 30 years of training experience, Walker founded NW Battle Buddies after a veteran asked her to train a service dog.
“A veteran [Kevin] came into my business looking for help. He wanted his personal dog to be trained as a service dog,” Walker said. “When it was time for his training portion of the process, that’s where it changed for me. I saw Kevin find courage inside of himself.”
After training Kevin’s service dog and teaching Kevin how to use his dog, Walker realized she wanted to give other veterans the same experience.
“When I saw Kevin walk away after our last training session, I felt like I had truly made a difference in the quality of somebody’s life,” Walker said.
NW Battle Buddies needs people to foster dogs, as well as donations so the organization can continue to provide free service dogs, which require $25,000 worth of training, Walker said.
“We are looking for some puppy fosters,” she said. “… We will have eight to 10 puppies that will need to be fostered in two months,” Walker said.
For more information, visit northwestbattlebuddies.org, or email office@northwestbattlebud dies.org.
