Veterans Affairs committee  I'm going to answer that with what Philip was saying. Staff need to be trained in mental health. With our SUAP grant right now, we've trained 30 service dog organization staff in peer support with mental health innovations. We've been evaluating that. We've had them all take ment

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll start. We are not saying not to have national standards at all. We're saying it's complex and that if we were going to create these standards, we'd also have to know what jobs these dogs are doing. You can go to one service dog organization where you get a dog and you don'

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. They were looking at prescribed medication and they didn't see a decrease. We have found a decrease in prescribed medication, and so have some of the studies coming out of Purdue and so forth. We also looked at other types of substances, like alcohol, marijuana and things l

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll start, and I'll give it to Darlene. Absolutely, and what we know about the dog itself is that dogs live in the moment. Dogs are very present. That's what happens when the veterans are with the dog, and we see that in all types of contexts. Even when we're working in prison

Veterans Affairs committee  That's where you're going to have a connection as well. As Chris said, if there is no connection, if it is just an obedient dog, it's just not going to work in the way it should. It won't work unless there is that really strong connection.

Veterans Affairs committee  Great. Thank you so much. I want to start by acknowledging the land that we're sharing across the country today and any animals that you might have around you, given that a lot of us are working from home. Thank you for this opportunity to share the expertise from our office. F