- [Chris] Zane, heel, with me.

Good boy.

- [Mary] You guys ready for taking a walk?

All right.

- [Chris] Good boy.

We're good, Zane, good boy, it's just a motorcycle.

Zane, heel.

(engine revs) Heel, we're good, we're good.

- [Mary] Remember, we're never gonna put you in harm's way.

What you need to do is pay attention to Zane.

The difference between perceived threat and real threat is what he tells you, not what you think or not where you've been.

- Zane, heel.

- [Mary] All right, you're good.

Cars parking.

(explosion booms) - We're good, Zane.

- Oh, okay, okay.

- We're good, thank you.

- Across, across.

- Good boy.

- Don't stop in the hallway.

- Good boy.

- Wasn't an imminent threat.

Probably a car backfiring.

- I think that's what it was.

- Yep.

- Good job, we're good.

(police siren rings) We're good, thank you.

Yeah.

We're good.

(police siren rings) - Chris, where are you?

- We're good, buddy.

- [Mary] Chris, Chris, where are you?

- I'm good.

- Where'd you go?

- Where all the loud noises are on the ship.

- [Mary] You flash back to that moment, that time?

Chris, you let the emotion out and you focus.

You focus on Zane.

You focus on him, come back here into the present moment.

Come back here to the fact that you have your freedom, we're walking around, right?

This is the kind of stuff that I tell you, everything- - I never thought about that.

- I know, buddy.

- Thank you.

- So what I want you to do right now is come back into the present moment.

Zane makes you happy, right?

- I love this dog.

(laughs) - Okay.

- I love him.

Yeah, thank you, Zane.

- Okay, so we'll give you a few minutes, okay?

- Oh, good boy, good boy, thank you.

Thank you for bringing me back.

Thank you.

(heartfelt music) - We're going the same direction we're facing.

Go wide, we're gonna say "side", okay?

The dog does not move until you tell him so, okay?

Step off.

Side.

- It's so ingrained in us to not fail.

To complete that mission, to adapt and overcome.

To acknowledge that we need help is in and of itself terrifying and not something we would ever do when we were serving.

You're putting yourself back in a vulnerable position.

There's a lot of courage that's needed to ask for help.

- [Instructor] You yourselves gotta touch.

Princess, touch.

(people chattering) (heartfelt music) - Pretty girl?

That's good.

- I am a female veteran.

I served for nine years on active duty.

I learned to train dogs in the military as one of the first female Army canine handlers and instructors.

(Mary shouts) I was lost just like everybody else that comes out of the service.

I can relate to losing confidence, transitions.

Good boy!

Wow.

(laughs) Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

I've loved dogs all my life and I started just a dog training business.

It's what I knew, what I was comfortable with.

When I got a call out of the clear blue from a Marine who had been on a traditional waiting list for a service dog organization to get a trained dog to help him with his PTSD, and it had been several years, and he was feeling pretty helpless and hopeless.

And if you've ever spoken to somebody who is suicidal or has suicidal ideologies, you can hear it even across the phone.

Being a veteran, I've gotta do something.

I was familiar with guide dogs.

I was familiar with mobility assistance dogs, but it wasn't something that I had thought about, let alone, "What was PTSD?"

I made a promise to that Marine that I didn't have all the answers, but if he was willing to give it a try, I would walk the journey with him and we would get it figured out.

(heartfelt music) You are going to tell them, "heel!"

Move your arm out in a big sweeping motion.

Transition, heel!

- Heel.

- All right, "sit!"

- Sit.

Sit.

- All right.

The fact that you're here, you're above ground, says a whole hell of a lot.

Have hope.

Hope stands for "hang on, pain ends", and you have an amazing gift at the end of the leash.

(heartfelt music) (wind blows) (Johnny chatters) (door slides) The person that left is very different than the person that came back, because now they're injured, they're wounded.

Some of those wounds are invisible.

What the family notices is all of the symptoms of the post-traumatic stress, the withdrawal, the isolation, the anger, the self-medication.

That creates a secondary post-traumatic stress.

- I was around three.

Think I had just turned three when he came home.

So I didn't really understand why he was always so mad.

- I would wake up and he wouldn't be there.

He'd be downstairs making sure all the doors were locked, making sure that nobody was in the house.

You know, there was something different about him.

- This is when my oldest son, Randy, then her IzaBella, and then Johnny, they're all two years old.

So these were given to me right before I deployed.

That way I could always look at 'em whenever I wanted to.

Had just turned 18, I saw a video of, you know, people jumping out of planes and shooting weapons, I was like, "Yeah, that's what I want to do."

But yeah, not knowing that the infantry's probably the hardest job in the military.

You get to meet all kinds of people and I got to travel all over.

Got to experience different cultures and the main thing is, I guess, just the bond that you build between, you know, your fellow soldiers and stuff and it's just like, it's a bond like no other.

I loved it.

I have the dog tags that say, "gone but never forgotten."

And then the tomb of the soldier.

Well it says, "I did my duty, I paid the supreme price, I pray you'll remember my sacrifice.

My life was short, I did my best.

God grant me peace in my eternal rest."

And those are for the friends that I lost.

I held and I still hold a lot of guilt, you know, 'cause, you know, why did I come back?

- When he came back it got really ugly really fast.

He would thrash around in bed and moan and whimper, and so I knew that there was something going on.

There would be nights that he would lay in bed all night with his eyes wide open and he wouldn't sleep until the sun came up.

- Dad, look at me?

I know when he'd be feeling anxious and I'd go over and hold his hand, just like take him back outta that, like, little trance that he put himself in.

- The nightmares started getting more intense.

I wasn't sleeping properly and my coping mechanism back then was drinking alcohol.

Drink 'til I pass out to try to get that good night's sleep, but in reality I was only making it worse.

- Sometimes my mom and dad argue and you feel like dad's gonna snap again.

- Me and Johnny were afraid to play and laugh 'cause he was always so mad.

So I thought I was really just misbehaving.

I thought I was just, like, not doing anything right.

- I don't know, for some reason things got, I won't say out of con- Well yeah, things got out of control.

I had no will to live anymore.

That's when I knew that I wasn't right and that I needed help.

- Spending a extended period of time in a military environment, to leave from that space of the camaraderie and that understanding, back into an environment where there is little to no understanding of the service members' experiences in the military, whether they were in combat or not, can be quite a challenge for anybody making such a dramatic transition.

- What appealed to joining in the military for me was the ability to get away from home.

Someplace I thought that, you know, it'd be filled with people with integrity and purpose and someplace I could feel safe.

Being a woman in the Army was challenging.

The drill instructors would say that we're not really soldiers.

We're not actually gonna go to combat, so these skills that they're teaching us were just a waste of time.

My job in the military as a linguist entailed listening to target countries who speak primarily Spanish and kind of eavesdropping or spying from afar, which would sometimes lead us to hearing very difficult things.

I heard people being hunted and shot and there was a lot of screaming.

In one particular case, there was a gentleman who knew he was going to be caught.

So he's running with his radio, saying his goodbyes to his family and asking his friends to take care of his family and his kids.

They shot him while he had the mic open and he was he was crying and screaming and that was difficult.

That's when I started to question what I was doing.

When I first heard reference to the term PTSD and what that was, I never thought that that label fit me because even though I was in the service, I had never been to combat.

Do you really think that one's gonna live?

- [Tamara] Yeah.

- I think it needs more sun.

- Okay.

I probably was unaware of how real some of her fears are.

Kim is Kim to me.

All of whatever makes her up.

All the experiences that she's gone through in her life is who and how she's become the person she is, which is the person I'm, you know, madly in love with.

Crowds can throw her, loud noises can throw her.

She would not necessarily hide behind me, but she would be much closer and tighter next to me.

Kim would go hiking or backpacking by herself, yeah.

To a mall, to a crowd of people?

Not so much.

- Next.

- Okay, Corporal Private.

(Kim laughs) - I work for the VA, Veterans Affair, I'm a health tech.

And I see a psychiatrist there who introduced the idea of having a service dog to me.

First time a therapist or psychiatrist has ever mentioned that to me.

- It is a growing topic of conversation among veterans as they become more aware that service dogs are a potential treatment in helping them navigate their road to recovery.

But there is no standard knowledge of how to access service dog assistance.

The responsibility does largely fall on our service dog training non-profit community, and there is very little to no support offered by the VA. - I remember the day that I saw him for the first time when he came back.

I was like 10?

I saw my mom walk in the door with some guy and I didn't know who he was.

And then after he took his sunglasses off I realized who it was.

That was, like, the last thing on my mind, that I was gonna see my dad.

- This is the piece of the Hummer I was driving.

My buddies brought it back for me from Iraq.

I drove over a bomb on our base.

Our vehicle was kind of pretty much blown in half.

I remember I looked down at my arm after the accident, I could see my bone down here and I felt some weirdness in my right leg and I didn't know that my fibula was broken until a couple hours later.

It's not a crazy firefight, it's not an intense situation, like they got me, you know, and I can't do anything about it.

And so for a long time I struggled with leaving Iraq not on my own terms, and it was very uncomfortable for me for a long time.

I couldn't sleep.

I started feeling really weird and I had no idea why.

Instead of having to go through the VA and try to find an appointment next month or two months, I would just drive to the ER whenever I wasn't feeling good, because I would be seen right away.

More than a few times, like, just going for chest x-rays because I felt like my chest was gonna explode, you know?

And they're like, "Well, you're fine."

It's like, "Well, I don't really feel fine."

As a father, as a man, as a Marine, like, I'm trying to understand what's going on with me.

I never talked to my kids about any of that.

- I remember him being really sleepy all the time, but telling me he didn't sleep good.

But to me it didn't really make sense, 'cause how do you sleep, like, all day, but you're not sleeping good, but you're in your room in the dark all day?

He would get angry really fast.

Like your belt loop getting stuck on the door when you're walking by, he would get so angry, and, like, slam the door.

I was scared to be around him or I didn't like being around him 'cause all he did was sleep and he didn't hang out with me.

He has to stop being the way he is if he wants me and my brother to be around him.

- I knew my father when I was young and so I knew he wasn't the same, but I knew that he didn't have to be the same.

He could come with all his brokenness and all his insecurities and all the things that he was dealing with and he could still be a great man.

- The brain chemistry and the brain wiring that promotes social behavior for all social mammals looks most alike in humans and in dogs.

They are most like us in the brain systems of friendship.

The neurohormone oxytocin is sitting at the center of what we now know as our social brain network, and it's essential to the survival of all social mammals.

A dog can read our mind through sight and smell and interpretation of our body language.

They are able to read us like a book.

That makes them good partners.

They respond very empathetically to us because of this oxytocin brain system that they have that's so similar to ours.

Looking into our dog's eyes when we come home and that tail's wagging and you're brushing them and you're saying, "Hello, hello, hello, I'm happy to see you, too."

The sight, the sound, the smell, the touch, all of that interaction is releasing the brain chemistry of bonding.

That is also the brain chemistry of anti-stress.

And so we relax.

- We went back to couples therapy and his doctor in Monterey, Dr. K, asked me, you know, what I thought about Ramon having a service animal.

- When I brought him home, I mean, it was just, "Okay, now I have a dog.

It's not just a regular dog, it's a service dog."

Now he's, you know, he has to be with me all the time.

So he knows I'm anxious right now.

(Meg laughs) And it was the first day that I brought him home and I'm like, you know, still wondering how's a dog gonna help me out?

We're watching TV in the living room and a firework went off.

I wasn't in the moment and he jumped on me and started licking my face.

And at first it kind of like, it got me, it pissed me off.

I was all like, "Hey, get away!

What are you doing?"

But then my wife ran out, "Did you see what he just did?

He got you not thinking about the firework."

And I was like, "Oh wow, it did really work."

- You know, my area is to study the science of why it works.

But when it comes to that pairing, that's the art.

It's not a science.

Learning how to train a dog to be a service dog, that kind of focused attention and patience and empathy that it takes.

It is better at reducing the symptoms of PTSD than any of the therapies that are on offer right now.

- I'd rather be with my dog than actually my own therapist.

The VA, because this place is such a high cost of living, a lot of the therapists, they have to move, because they can't afford it, they're not getting paid enough.

So it's the whole thing of changing therapists all the time.

- [Meg] Yeah.

- And having to start all over again, that's what just, it aggravates the hell out of me.

- No, it's not helpful, and that's why the dogs are the constant.

- When I'm stressed and anxious, she climbs up and just leans her weight back into my chest and we just sit here and I settle down.

Those times when I'm starting to get irritated, annoyed, angry, anxious, she alerts me to it before I have an anxiety attack, before I lose my temper.

I'm present a lot more in my life than I ever have been.

I concluded my service partially because I came out and the witch hunts and living in fear constantly.

Don't ask, don't tell.

Also because of a sexual assault that occurred.

So it just didn't feel like someplace I could stay and be healthy.

Artemis has affected my entire life, both going out in public, being at work.

She's helped my marriage quite a bit.

- Just hugely satisfying to know that Kim has this critter that loves her as much as I do and that can calm her when I'm not there.

- You can't just hide your feelings and emotions, 'cause these darn dogs, they know.

They can smell it, they can feel it.

But she knows that I am her partner and I am her job.

She understands that her place is with me everywhere I go.

- I can see that Kim functions in her day-to-day life, having to deal with people or deal with situations just a little more relaxed, a little more calmly.

She, you know, has Artemis that's next to her, that can lean against her and provide that physical contact, and also something for her to do.

You know, she's holding the leash, she's aware of interacting with the crowd with the dog.

- I can't even express how important the training is.

We're learning to do things that I had no idea dogs could learn.

- Dogs actually provide neurochemically, sensory, emotionally and socially a very rich experience for us that can fill a hole that can be left when human social relationships are not rewarding or available.

For military sexual trauma, there is a very ugly and dangerous aspect to that, because it isn't just sexual trauma.

As if that isn't bad enough.

It's a form of incest as well, because this was your band of brothers.

That is a particularly devastating injury.

And so you might have human trust destroyed, but this dog never did anything to not earn your trust and your love and your compassion, and keep that part of you in your heart and your brain alive until humans prove themselves worthy again.

- [Meg] I always say, you know, once upon a time, dogs protected us from enemies without.

Now they're protecting us from the enemies within.

- It took a while, some adapting for both of us, I believe.

It was almost discouraging in a sense, because I was taking on more responsibilities when I really didn't have myself in order.

But they're there to usher you back into life.

Just having someone there to consistently be around you, to understand you, in a sense, definitely helped me lose that edge.

And it's good to know when I'm talking during the day, I'm talking to someone instead of talking to myself.

Makes me feel better about myself.

(laughs) - Samson has softened my dad's heart.

I know he's worked through a lot of things and I see it in the day to day, working on his patience, working on his love.

It's not easy sometimes as a man to connect with your father.

So I think Samson's also softened my heart a little bit, restoring my relationship with my father.

- And I still see shapes and colors when I close my eyes at night.

Pulsating and spinning behind eyelids squeezing tight.

Tears within birthing tears within.

And they still fall.

They still fall.

(audience applauds) Oh, thank you, I appreciate it.

Thanks for attending.

- Really just loved it.

- Appreciate it, thank you.

- I noticed my dad changed a lot when Samson came around as far as being more patient.

We'll hang out a lot more, like, as far as watching movies together or eating together.

My dad, like, holds him like a baby on the couch when they sleep together.

Like, it's just small, funny stuff like that, that kind of like, we wouldn't laugh at stuff like that, obviously, if we didn't have Samson.

(heartfelt music) - Hiding feelings that continuously make me numb to interactions and emotions, floating in an ocean of doubt without anyone in sight.

And I'm fighting to keep my head above water and I hear my daughter say, "I love you."

and my son say, "I need you."

I can't believe I let days turn to years of my children living in fear of their father.

It bothers me to the depths of my soul.

But I feel whole when the three of us are together.

And I never want the day to end without them hearing me say, "I love you."

- [Mary] There are so many different ways a service dog is a lifeline.

It's tethering them to the here and the now.

A reconnection to family, unconditional love.

Having learned to trust a service dog the world begins to open up again.

(rollercoaster roars) (water splashes) - One, two, three, cheese, thank you!

- As long as Huey's with him, he can go to places that I'd never thought he'd be able to go to.

We can go and Huey's there and he gets through it.

- Since I've gotten Huey, him and I have been inseparable.

He knows when I'm angry, you know, he just comforts me in so many different ways.

(people shout) (rollercoaster roars) - My dad smiles a lot more and he's happier more because of Huey.

Huey has helped the family a lot.

- [IzaBella] Huey's made it easier for my dad to come out.

Just having him around is honestly the best thing ever.

- She helps create space around me and watches my back.

(heartfelt music) We're good.

So it allows me to be able to go out and feel safe.

And actually believe like I deserve it.

(heartfelt music) (heartfelt music continues) (heartfelt music continues)