Rescue Trains Dogs To Help Veterans Struggling With PTSD Get Through Everyday Life

Adjusting to civilian life can be extremely difficult for veterans, especially those suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Many of them have trouble getting back into their daily routines, and many suffer from night terrors.

At the same time, there are many dogs just like those veterans, who suffer from damaged pasts.

Big Dog Ranch Rescue in Loxahatchee Groves found a way to help both these dogs in bad conditions and the veterans suffering from PTSD and other mental health issues.

They recently opened the Hoffman Family Veteran Dog Training Lodge, a 4,000-square-foot facility that will be used to train service dogs and then pair them with veterans battling PTSD.

“It’s part of our mission. We just honor the veterans who have served us, who have sacrificed for us, and we just truly believe that rescue dogs can rescue veterans,” Robin Friedman, the executive director of Big Dog Ranch Rescue, told WPBF.

Six dedicated trainers will be working with the nearly 700 rescue dogs to train the best ones for 12 to 18 months. They will be able to identify the dogs that will fit best in their veterans program. They will go through basic obedience before advanced obedience, and the selected dogs will then move on to the service dog task work, where they will learn to help veterans in everyday life.

For the veterans who suffer from night terrors, the service dogs will be trained to properly wake the veteran up, jump on them, lick their face, and make sure everything is okay. The dogs will also help the veterans go places they couldn’t go before in public, and to just feel more comfortable and at ease in their everyday lives.

Veterans who are interested in being paired with a dog can apply for their program. They would then come in for a consultation and meet all of the dogs to see which dog would fit best with them.