Psychology Today – Do Psychiatric Service Dogs Really Help Veterans with PTSD? – Hal Herzog Ph.D. – February 15, 2018
There’s a mighty lot of mumbling these days about “service dogs” and “emotional support animals.” For those folks who love dogs, there’s no doubt that spending time with our canine creatures allows nervous systems to relax. Said technically (and this is verifiable with via any EEG brain scanning machine) petting a dog allows most people’s sympathetic nervous system…that is the fight, flight, freeze part of our brains responsible for our survival) to calm down. So, if your house is on fire, don’t hang out and pet your dog. If it’s not on fire (but you’ve got some bills due and your boss is a jerk) consider 15 minutes with your dog a solid investment in your health and wellbeing.
Despite the fact that veterans are returning from deployment often with great difficulty reaclimating to civilian life, many suffering from the significant challenge of allowing their fight, flight, freeze to turn off, there are virtually no studies on how dogs can help. Studies of the effectiveness of animal assisted interventions for the treatment of psychological trauma are remarkably sparse. Conversely, because the experiential evidence is abundantly clear that having a dog can be enormously helpful, there are many small, localized programs connecting dogs with veterans. Warrior Canine Connection, Hugs for Heroes, and Pets For Vets are three examples. But funding is sparse because the empirical evidence is not there.
Thankfully, preliminary findings from a new study by the Veterans Administration is offering some hope. Do Psychiatric Service Dogs Really Help Veterans?, in Psychology Today offers a synopsis. Full results (of what dog owners and therapists who use dogs in therapy have known for ever) are forecasted for a couple of years out, but let’s be grateful for the possibility that our vets, and all those suffering from trauma, might eventually receive the best care available to move away from symptoms and more solidly into the pleasure of life.