Thank you for having me come.
I'm just going to talk a little bit about how service dogs help people with PTSD. I'm going to speak about working with my clients, the things that I have seen and some of the basic things that a service dog can do.
There are a lot of studies out there that have investigated the affects of human-animal interactions that improve the welfare and quality of life of people.
We have found that generally PTSD sufferers suffer from negative moods, periods of depression, anxiety, flashes of anger, reckless behaviour and sleeplessness. One of the main things is that they disengage from relationships with others. They avoid public places. They avoid strangers and they detach themselves from society as a whole. Self-isolation and feelings of despair and hopelessness has led to a suicidal crisis within the first responder community right now.
One of the most significant benefits we have seen with implementing service dogs for individuals with PTSD is that it forces them to interact with society once again. We have found that many of them are embarrassed by their symptoms and they self-isolate. Being part of a group and knowing that others are dealing with the same issue creates a support system for them.
If a program is implemented correctly, it provides a support system to help the individual integrate back into society. The individualized and supported training leads to group classes, group activities, PA—which is what we call public access—and a support system with other handlers who are going through similar circumstances.
We actually don't implement a program dog, which is a dog trained within our program. We have found that self-training or owner training and having the person involved in the training has greatly increased the success of our program because the person is actually involved in the training. We have found that the public access work is even more important with a person with PTSD than the actual obedience training with the dog.
For people with PTSD, one of the main things we have found is that a lot of sufferers of PTSD self-harm. Some of the tasks of the service dog can help out with that. We use the dogs to bring them back to the present. We do an interruption of harmful behaviours. The dog can do this by nudging them, knocking their hands away or refocusing the person on the dog instead of the behaviour they're interacting with.
Once the person has a dog, they become more comfortable and outgoing in public. This allows them to participate in addiction group therapy. They feel more comfortable to go out by themselves and participate. The service dog group also makes them feel that they're not alone and helps encourage the handler to continue with their medical doctor.
We've also found that a lot of people with PTSD are hypervigilant and hyperaware. The dog can do a block. The dog can also be taught to recognize these symptoms. Flashbacks and night terrors are other things that the dog can be taught to recognize.
We can do it with a heart rate increase, a decrease in heart rate, if the person is sweating, if they are pacing, with jerking movements or with anger. The dog can cue in on any change in any kind of behaviour of the person. Once we identify these things, the owner has an opportunity.... The dog can take the person away from a situation or they can use DPT, which is deep pressure therapy, to help the owner feel comfort.
It's a pressure therapy. It's a tactile therapy that will provide comfort and warmth and also helps the person to just regroup. For night terrors, the dog is taught to understand when the person is in distress during sleep and the dog can stop the person—