Moving On and Healing

Months have passed and a lot of healing has taken place. It was hard to get used to working without my shadow of almost 9 years. But, work we have done. We (Chula, Pitiful Pearle, Quihi and I) are involved with a local spay/neuter campaign called Talk About It, geared to educate the community about the importance of health care, spay/neuter and adoption. We go into community centers, churches and public parks giving free dog training demos and showing people how to take care of their dogs. I have loved getting on the ground with young children and showing them that they too can train their dogs. Talking with elderly and meeting new young couples and providing them with fun things they can do to make their dogs members of the family.
We are working with Penny’s From Heaven training therapy dogs to go to BAMC and other facilities in order to help the men and women returning from war cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI’s). We have also started a new program based on providing and training medical assistance dogs to wounded warriors who have a hard time getting back out into society. This is the Train a Dog Save a Warrior program. Loving called TADSAW.


Imagine coming from a place were a traffic jam could be a set up for a road side bomb. A crowded area is an ambush waiting to happen. These young men and women have been there and have injuries from just such a thing. Just driving in rush hour traffic sends waves of fear or causes horrible flash backs. A simple trip to a grocery store or WalMart is unthinkable. So, these brave young men and women seek safety by shutting themselves in a room. Until they meet their dogs. The dogs give them a silent shoulder to lean on, a comforting nuzzle when things get hard. These dogs add comfort by watching the warriors back when in a crowd. They also, will alert the warrior when they feel him or her start to shut down. This enables the warrior to change gears or get out of a situation or the dog will lead the warrior to the nearest exit. These dogs assist those who walk in their sleep, and those who can’t sleep or have horrible nightmares.



Recently I fostered and trained a dog named Kingsley to go warrior. He came from a wonderful foster home with Gavin Nichols who I met through Talk About It. Gavin and his wife took a pup from a local high kill shelter and nurtured and raised him. Kingsley lived and trained with me for about four weeks. Then we carefully screened and matched him with his warrior. It was a great match and the two of them will have a fantastic life together.


We have plenty of dogs in our local shelter that would be fantastic at the task of helping a warrior. However, there are too few great foster homes such as the Nichols who are willing to take these dogs in and bring them to training. Want to save a dog? Want to do something to bring down the number of dogs we kill each day in San Antonio? Want to do something to help out these brave young men and women returning from war broken and battered? If you answered yes to any of these questions, please contact me. I may just have a way you can help out.