3/10/2024 0 Comments Good state of mind downloadAs of April, the organization has 873 “warrior canine” graduates - veterans who have gone through the training process to be paired with a service dog - with a 99% success rate, said Carl Cricco, chief executive officer of K9s For Warriors.Ī study of K9s For Warriors participants conducted by Flagler College in St. K9s For Warriors, founded by Shari Duval in 2011, is one of a number of organizations dedicated to hooking veterans such as Lins up with service dogs. In 2021, 10% of male veterans and 19% of female veterans out of a total of 6 million treated by the VA were diagnosed.īut as Lins and hundreds of other veterans have found, service dogs can help with treatment. Rates of PTSD vary among service areas and depend on the study. PTSD is more common in veterans than civilians, with 7% of veterans developing PTSD at some point in their lives, versus 6% of civilians, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “I could see such a difference in him, and he stayed and talked to me about it, and that gave me a glimmer of hope,” Lins said. When I had left the house I brought a pistol with me, and I was ready to not come back.”įortunately, Lins instead met with his therapist at the VA to “kind of just unload.” As he was leaving the office, he ran into a veteran friend of his who was with his new service dog, Chauncey. Like that was a real possibility at the time for me. My wife at the time had told me that the only good thing I could do was kill myself so they could collect the life insurance policy. “I had been kicked out of my house I was living under a tarp in the woods and really struggling. “I was in the VA, I was in substance abuse treatment at the time and PTSD treatment, and it was not working,” Lins said. But he continued to struggle not just with his injuries, but with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse as well. Too injured to reenlist, Lins, who now lives in Forest Hill, Md., retired from the Marines as a sergeant in 2016. “… But it really started having an impact.” “The orthopedic surgeon at the time said, ‘You’re young, stick it out as long as you can because this is gonna not be good for your career,’” Lins said.
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