National Defence committee  Hello, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to come to speak to you and to the committee today. I am Master Corporal Nachuk. I joined the regular force in 1996. I am a signaller by trade, and that gives me an opportunity to deploy and work with several different units within

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. First of all, hypervigilance is basically always being on guard. You're always looking around, checking what's going on. Basically you're always on alert, and that mixes to the emotional response triggers. For example, you're in a mall and somebody drops a can on the

National Defence committee  Yes. For the hypervigilance, I focus on the dog. I am not always scanning around for what's going on; I'm focusing on the dog. For the emotional response, he gives me a sense of protection. I feel that somebody is there watching my back, so to speak.

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. He just gives me that sense of security, and I know that someone has my back, so to speak. Over there, someone always has your back.

National Defence committee  I am so happy you asked that question. That is actually our goal here, sir. Our goal in a perfect world is for Mr. Leonard—who graciously volunteered to help me, Geoff, and maybe a couple others—to train us so we could actually expand this to the other bases that we're on to be a

National Defence committee  Yes, sir.

National Defence committee  There may be other speakers here today who may be able give more light on that. I'm just speaking from a soldier's point of view and from my understanding. Others speaking later today may be able to give more of a detailed correct statement on that aspect.

National Defence committee  If I may, fortunately I haven't personally gone through the medical release part of it, but for a soldier who wants to be medically released or does not want to, yes, the time can really vary, basically depending on your unit. If they feel that they still need you, they could hol

National Defence committee  For myself, personally, I actually purchased my dog from a rescue, so he cost me $150. I purchased him prior to getting involved with Mr. Leonard. When you deal with vets or whatever and you inform them that your dog actually is a service animal, most vets will.... Well, for mys

National Defence committee  Yes, sir, that actually came from a medical officer. It was my doctor, a military doctor. I will say, being in 2B of 2 PPCLI, that we are truly a close net of brothers. There has been, on our part, a little bit of betterment on that aspect. We actually start comparing meds among

National Defence committee  I have to apologize. When I'm being read something, there are times when it's hard for me to put it back into—

National Defence committee  You know what, sir? I would respectfully say I don't care what the science is behind it: it saved my life. It saved lives of friends of mine in Shilo. I am getting phone calls from a friend of mine who used to suffer very badly from seizures. He got a dog. He's able to get into t

National Defence committee  I'm not sure if this falls within what you're asking, but Dr. Meaney, I know, has done research on it with the levels of the release of oxytocin in our bodies when interacting with animals. The release of that will help you with the decrease of anxiety, stress, and depression. I

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. You see them widely in hospitals, in hospices. Just going through Confederation Park earlier today was kind of ironic, because I saw the statue of the dog from way back in the wars. If they're good enough to be mascots and basically soldiers back in history, why did we

National Defence committee  With that, sir, from my point of view, after I started working with my dog, I went from being driven from Shilo to Brandon twice a week for appointments at the OSI clinic. After I started to work with my dog, my meds went down and my appointments for depression went from twice a