Local veterans, canines connect for healing

T.J. and Lucy, his canine healer (courtesy photo)

Lucy has changed my life — TJ

Santa Fe — “My mission is to train this dog for my fellow recovering Warrior. I will not accept defeat.”

This is the Warrior Ethos of military veterans participating in the Warrior Canine Connection program with Assistance Dogs of the West, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit.

Through ADW’s national partnership with the Warrior Canine Connection in Maryland, they offer the WCC program in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, providing local veterans the opportunity to give back. By accepting a new mission to train canines for others in need, the dogs help veterans connect with their families and communities, creating an increased sense of belonging, purpose, and acceptance.

Program member T.J. shares how one dog in particular saved his life. He is a Marine Corps combat veteran, who suffers from PTSD, night terrors and other mental and physical disabilities, sustained while on active duty overseas. As part of his healing process and therapy, T.J. had worked with numerous ADW pups before Lucy came bounding out of the van one Monday morning ready for WCC class.

“This short-legged, stocky, melty-faced golden girl made a beeline towards me and playfully circled me, begging for my attention and she got it,” T.J. said.

Lucy kept checking in on him as she scoped out the training area, so T.J. asked if they could work together. The trainers kept a watchful eye on this duo over the next few months because they recognized the immediate and special bond.

Now they are an official team and in T.J.’s words:

“Lucy has changed my life. When I’m afraid, she’s never closer. When I’m disoriented, she brings me back to the now. When I’m sad, her head is on my lap starring up at me. When I suddenly awake yelling from night terrors, she is not afraid. When all I can do is pace back and forth holding my neck, she paces with me. If I am happy, she prolongs the moment.

Lucy is with me through it all and then some. She has talked me down from some of the most terrible thoughts and poor decisions I’ve contemplated. The most important job she performs is when I struggle with faces from my military career that randomly haunt me that provoke suicidal thoughts and ideations. At these times she is all I have. And that’s enough for me.”

All veteran service dog applicants must participate in the Warrior Canine Connection program, which allows them to interview with a variety of dogs and start the process of finding the perfect canine that will always have their six. Canines are placed with veteran recipients requiring individual and family support for anxiety disorders, PTSD, mobility impairments, and more. To date they have proudly partnered dogs with those who have served in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The Warrior Canine Connection utilizes a Mission Based Trauma Recovery model to help recovering Warriors reconnect with life, their families, their communities, and each other. Learn more at: AssistanceDog