Working Like a Dog: Canines Offer PTSD Relief

For National Service Dog Month, we’re tossing the ball to canine companions who take “good dog” to the next level by serving as supports for people who live with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here at MITRE, we’re digging into sponsor work that helps medical professionals detect PTSD symptoms via AI for earlier treatment. Closer to home, MITRE counts several service dogs among our ranks.

Among therapies and treatments for PTSD is one that’s warmer and fuzzier than the rest. Service dogs trained for PTSD can help their handlers with physical tasks, psychiatric episodes, and—for veterans—transitioning to civilian life.

At MITRE, employees and their families are helping to lead the pack in raising awareness about PTSD service dogs. From sponsoring programming to volunteering to sharing their experiences, they’re doing their part to give PTSD service dogs the head pats they deserve.

Shining a Light on PTSD

According to Canine Companions, a national organization that has placed thousands of service dogs free of charge to people with disabilities, PTSD service dogs “are trained to identify each [handler’s] unique stressors and perform tasks that directly disrupt escalation of symptoms.”

Earlier this year, our Accessibility Council and The Veterans' Council (TVC) Business Resource Groups invited Michele Masters—who has since retired after more than 30 years as a principal software engineer—to address the MITRE community about her experiences as a volunteer puppy raiser for Canine Companions.

Lead applied cybersecurity engineer and Accessibility Council co-chair Zak Zebrowski first learned of Masters’ involvement as a volunteer puppy raiser during at a department gathering at her home. After meeting her current canine charge and “hearing how enthusiastically she spoke of the program,” Zebrowski says, he proposed the presentation on behalf of the two BRGs.

“We absolutely strive to shine a light on PTSD,” says Steven Newton, a principal cyber capacity engineer and TVC officer who helped coordinate Masters’ presentation to the MITRE community.

Newton knows better than most the importance of that light. A retired Navy commander, he says his own experiences in combat have resulted in PTSD. And he’s known other active-duty and veteran military members who have suffered from—or succumbed to—the condition. At MITRE, and within TVC, he's found a community willing to share his desire to spread awareness and understanding about PTSD.

The Dog Days of Volunteerism

Over the last 12 years, Masters and her husband have cared for a half-dozen pups bred for the organization—including several that ultimately found their calling as PTSD support animals. What she shared with a large, enthusiastic virtual audience during her presentation shed insight on the careful instruction and unique attributes required of service dogs, especially those whose life’s work centers on PTSD.

As volunteer puppy raisers, the Masterses aren’t responsible for training service animals. Rather, they take in pups from Canine Companions’ breeding program until they’re ready for the next step in their training journey.

For about a year and a half, volunteer puppy raisers provide a loving home with a focus on dog basics such as simple commands, housetraining, and overall good doggy manners. Around 18-month mark, suitable candidates enter the program to be trained in such tasks as nightmare and anxiety interruption, opening doors, turning on lights, retrieving dropped items, and even pulling manual wheelchairs for short distances.

Of course, for volunteer puppy raisers like the Masterses, that means saying goodbye. But as hard as it is to lose a furry friend, Masters says she and her husband focus on the impact the puppies they raise will have on their eventual handlers.

“Knowing how these dogs are going to help people who really need them is amazing,” she says. “We think, `How can we not contribute to that?’”

Meet a Member of the MITRE Family

Director of engagement, program management, and communications Dagmara Shepard has been witness to the power of trained canine companionship since her family welcomed Claymore, a German Shepherd trained to help her husband, Ladd, manage his PTSD.

After deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine, a traumatic brain injury and reminders of battles that took the lives of his colleagues sent Shepard into what he calls “the self-licking ice cream cone of destruction.” Still on high alert from his combat experiences and “constantly overwhelmed” in public places, he found his world had shrunk to his basement.

A new friend from Freedom Hunters opened Shepard’s eyes to the benefits of PTSD-trained service dogs—then jump-started a notion into action when he informed Shepard that a German Shepherd puppy was waiting for him. Young Claymore was pick of the litter from a breeder who wanted one of their dogs to answer the call to service.

Shepard worked with Semper K9 to assess Claymore’s suitability for service-dog work, then for professional training in navigating public places, mobility assistance, calming night terrors, and picking up fallen objects. Today, both Ladd and Dagmara Shepard credit Claymore with delivering hope and purpose that PTSD had taken from him.

“Before, I couldn’t turn off what kept me alive in combat,” he says. “Thanks to Claymore, I’m no longer looking for threats—I can be finally present,” he says.

Dagmara Shepard agrees. “Having a service dog has in so many ways opened up the world for my spouse—and therefore our family,” she says. “Claymore creates opportunities for all of us.”