This program originated through the efforts of the Northern Illinois Vietnam Veterans of America Local Chapter 984 and the Rockford Illinois Veterans Administration (VA) Mental Health Clinic. It serves veterans of all conflicts who are challenged, disabled, in transition, and/or suffer from the effects of PTSD (Post Traumatic stress Disorder) or TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). Admission to the program requires a referral from the Rockford VA Mental Health Clinic. Progress of participating veterans is regularly assessed by Clinic professionals.

PTSD and other conditions or disabilities manifest themselves to varying degrees in feelings of insecurity, lack of confidence and trust, loss of memory, inability to care for oneself, uneven temperament, nightmares, and many other symptoms that result in the inability to lead a normal life and integrate back into society.

Built around interaction between veterans and the program and rescue dogs, the program offers specific professional training of veterans in the rehabilitation of rescue dogs.

WHY DOGS? DOGS ARE THE TEACHERS

Program Dogs
Under the guidance and supervision of a professional dog trainer, these well-trained, steady dogs teach the veterans to be fair, firm, and consistent and to praise the dog for good efforts. Working with these wonderful dogs helps the veterans gain confidence in dog handling, giving the proper commands, and the knowledge of temperaments and talents of various breeds. Their behavior is reliable, so our veterans can safely take them out in public. Many of the Program dogs were once Rescue dogs.

Rescue dogs
Rescue dogs experience trauma through lack of understanding by their owners of what that particular dog and breed is designed to do. The lack of consistent handling and training, neglect and abandonment result in a dog that suffers fear and uncertainty about its future. It doesn’t know what it should do to please its owner and, therefore, unable to choose the right behavioral path, the dog is left to its own choices or instincts. Soon, the dog is left at a pound, given away, or simply abandoned. If the dog survives, it may be fortunate to be rehabilitated in the Circle of Change Veterans Program classes.

A temperament assessment is done on the dog to determine its triggers, fears and intensity levels. Once the triggers are identified, rehabilitation can begin. Unless rehabilitated, the dog won’t be able to function successfully in a home..

A fundamental of training a rescue dog comes out of knowing the breed, its strengths and purpose in being. It is assumed that the dog needs to start from scratch. As dogs are pack animals, the dog must have a trusted pack leader who provides its five basic needs: Food, Fun, Attention, Comfort, and Safety.

In recognizing these basic needs and the dog’s triggers, the trainer will come to understand the reasons for the dog’s behavior. Such things as lack of respect, anxiety and frustration, mistrust, irritability, hyper vigilance, depression and apathy, lack of focus, lack of interest, feelings, and motivation, unwillingness to bond, avoidance, noise and touch sensitivity and poor concentration are common. Attention seeking, impulsive and reactive, destructive, rebellious, challenging and aggressive behaviors are often equally present. These happen to be many of the same characteristics of behavior experienced by the veterans in the program. The veteran in rehabilitating and training the dogs to overcome these conditions and behaviors then sees a pathway to his or her own recovery. Helping a dog recover is, therefore, therapeutic to the veterans’ own conditions. This has been shown to be true in the short life of this program.

FUTURE GOALS

Future program goals include:

• Inviting qualified veterans and others to participate in the training of veterans in our weekly classes
• Developing a training manual for our classes, including lesson plans and videos, for use by qualified trainers in veteran classes in other locations