Vets Help Heroes
What happens when an 89-year-old prisoner of war from World War II is put together with a service dog? The answer is changing the lives of scores of wounded American veterans returning home from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Irwin Stovroff, founder of Vets Helping Heroes, said he witnessed first-hand how service dogs can save the lives of veterans. He explained he was motivated to start a foundation for the purpose since government funds were largely unavailable.
“What motivated me was the fact that I realized these young heroes were coming back and were going to have one tough life,” Stovroff told WND’s Aaron Klein in a radio interview. “They had so many handicaps, being blind, losing arms, having seizures, post traumatic stress disorder, and our government had no funds for dogs.”
Vet Helping Heroes provides the funds needed to ensure that a specialized training process for each dog is tailored to respond to the specific needs of each injured soldier.
In some cases, the dogs learn to block off personal space for PTSD-suffering vets. In others, they are guides for soldiers who lost their sight in battle. Some dogs are even trained to signal an impending onset of seizure by barking, offering their owners a crucial second or two to prepare.
Stovroff says the training costs range from $10,000 up to $60,000 per dog, a sum well out of reach for most returning soldiers. Each dog can take up to two years to train. The training is a complex and extensive process that includes many stages.
“These young veterans coming back, this is the highest rate of suicide we have ever had in the military. … Anytime I have been able to work with a veteran and see that he gets a dog, it’s an entire change in his life,” he said.
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