For veterans struggling with mental health, there is hope that a little help from a four-legged friend can make all the difference.
Unfortunately, there has been a shortage in volunteers willing to raise and train service dogs. Now, there’s a new push to get corporate America to step in to meet the demand to train service dogs.
U.S. Army retired Staff Sgt. Joseph Nieves and his best friend Jem are inseparable.
“She knows when I’m having a bad day. She knows when I’m anxious,” Nieves said. “She’s like my copilot.”
Nieves struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder made worse by his time in Iraq. Jem helps.
“If I’m really depressed and I’m having a hard time getting out of bed, she’ll come, she’ll lay right next to me,” Nieves said. “Just having that presence has really done a lot for me and my mental health.”
Nieves said Jem almost never leaves his side.
“For the most part she comes with me everywhere,” Nieves said. “We are like, I’d venture to say Batman and Robin. Sometimes I’m Batman.”
The pair were brought together by a collaboration between service dog organization Canine Companions and the PenFed Credit Union’s Foundation as part of an initiative to provide support animals for veterans and others with a disability.
The program currently has a two-year waitlist because there aren’t enough people like the person who raised Jem.
Andrea McCarren is the president of the PenFed Foundation and a six-time puppy raiser of service dogs.
“People ask me every day, ‘How can you love, nurture, raise, train a puppy from age eight weeks to 18 months and then say goodbye?’ And, to be honest, it’s brutal. But how can I not? If I don’t do it, who will?” McCarren said.
She said sharing the responsibility with colleagues and meeting the veterans can ease the heartbreak.
“PenFed has done something no one in corporate America has done: We have raised nine service dogs in our offices across the country,” McCarren said. “They pay the veterinary bills, they provide the food training supplies. . . . Having a service dog in the office really builds that culture of teamwork.”
The partnered organizations are now looking to corporations to help meet the growing demand for well-trained pups.
- You can learn more at penfedfoundation.org and at canine.org.