Canine training and ‘the thing under the thing’ presented as PTSD, suicide prevention therapies
Two different approaches to dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide prevention were shared on Aug. 23 with The American Legion TBI/PTSD Suicide Prevention Committee in New Orleans during the organization’s national convention.
The committee first heard from Rick Yount, the founder and CEO of Warrior Canine Connection (WCC), which provides therapy to veterans with PTSD by involving them in the training of mobility service dogs for fellow veterans. Yount pioneered the first therapeutic service dog training program at the Palo Alto, Calif., Veterans Hospital in 2008 and has been involved in animal-assisted therapy for 22 years.
Yount said the program not only has helped veterans deal with their PTSD, but also improve sleep patterns and communication. “To train these dogs, you have to learn how to communicate, and every dog is different,” he said. “You have to communicate and train them based on what that dog’s personality requires. You have to learn from flexibility.
“And when you give a command, you can’t be passive … because dogs will blow that off. But you also can’t be aggressive. So now you have to learn to be assertive. You have to be able to, in the moment, see what the dog needs as far as communication to be successful.”
The program also helps with emotional regulation. “No one on earth has learned to be more patient by having their spouse tell them that they need to be more patient,” Yount said. “The only way you can truly learn patience is by practicing it. Training one of these dogs is a vast opportunity to practice patience over and over again. They’re going to mess with you and challenge your leadership. It’s what they do. And you’ve got to learn how to be patient and work through that to earn their respect without getting frustrated or overtly showing your frustration.”
But Yount said the problem is there are not enough service dogs to meet the demand necessary to assist all the veterans who need it. That’s why WCC has teamed with American Legion Post 295 in Germantown, Md., on a pilot program in which members of the post will volunteer to raise the puppies headed toward the program and then participate in the dog-training program.
“We can breed puppies. We have that down,” Yount said. “But we need volunteers to take in these puppies and become puppy raisers, keep these pups for about a year and a half and help with the training of them and socializing of them. And then willingly give them back, which is not easy.
“So we’re recruiting post members at 295 to become puppy raisers and then to do the training at the post … and then engage other veterans who may not be post members in getting involved in this service project to address this real critical need.”
Yount and WWC were featured in an American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast earlier this summer, along with retired Sgt. First Class Joe Ouellette, who left the Army in 2022 and now lives in Maryland with his service dog, Wells.
Bob Ouellette, Joe’s father and a member of Post 295, spoke glowingly of the program and its founder following Yount’s presentation. “This man is responsible for saving my son’s life,” he said. “(Joe) was discharged after 15 years with PTSD and TBI. He’d go up in his room, and if it wasn’t for Rick and his dogs, we don’t know where he’d be. But when he has a dog, he’s social. He comes down and talks to us. This is a great mission.”
The committee also heard from Dr. Jake Clark, the president and founder of Ohio-based Save a Warrior (SAW). A U.S. Army and California Army National Guard veteran, Clark also has served with the U.S. Secret Service, the Los Angeles Police Department and as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
SAW uses a residential 72-hour program at its 300-acre facility that has veterans engage in ceremony, ritual, storytelling and story listening, experiences that locate, identify and resolve the source of moral injury pain. The focus is addressing complex PTSD and distinguishing formative trauma from moral injury.
“I’m here to let you know that we’re not looking at the problem … why so many veterans are killing themselves,” Clark said. “We are looking at the issue and have been the last 12 years. And it was not what we thought it was going to be.”
Clark said the problem is “very, very simple. I have taken 2,500 returning veterans through this program in the past 12 years, and they’ve all told me the same story: ‘In my childhood I was neglected, I was abused, and the family was dysfunctional.’ That’s called the thing under the thing, and that’s a very difficult conversation to have with someone who does not want to have that conversation.”
Clark said 93 percent of SAW’s participants were sexually abused as a child. Of those, 500 were women, and all had been the victim of some sort of sexual trauma. “That’s why returning veterans commit suicide,” he said. “I have no illusions about how to solve this issue. You have to get down to the thing under the thing. You’ve got to let people tell you what happened to them and not interrupt them. There’s a way to give people the space to say what needs to get said one last time.”
Department of Minnesota Vice Commander Pam Krill, a member of Fairmont American Legion Post 36, stepped to the microphone following Clark’s presentation and provided an emotional and powerful endorsement for the program.
“It is transformational. That program saved me,” she said. “It took me eight years to listen to my son … who kept saying, ‘Mom, something’s wrong with you. You’re not right.’ I’m a single mom and a three-time combat veteran, and when I came home from my last tour my son kept saying that to me.”
Krill said she was heavily medicated when she came out of the military, causing her to hate both herself and her life. “Several times I sat there and contemplated killing myself,” she said. “The best thing that happened to me after that program is that it shifted in a matter of minutes. You got your holy s—t because you didn’t think it would work. So again, I say thank you for helping me.”