Service dogs for the veterans

Although Nina Service Dogs is specialized in training service dogs for children with visible and invisible disabilities, there are always service dogs whose personalities make them more suitable for adults that are able to function independently.

For many decades, organizations like “4 Paws for Ability”, are providing service dogs to veterans men and women, who are still suffering from the conflicts of war, service/assistance dogs to help them lead a more independent life.

While other organizations are assisting veterans with brain injuries and loss of sight, our organization is following 4 paw’s model and method of training and has selected to assist Veterans with mobility problems or hearing loss resulting from combat injuries. The disability may be a loss of a limb, balance issues, spinal injury, deafness, PTSD or other.

Our organization’s service/assistance dogs will be trained to meet the veteran’s specific needs which could include tasks from the list below but are not limited to that. They can help them as follows:

- Alert them for upcoming unpleasant, activities, behaviors, panic attacks
- Provide them with comfort and calm them down if needed so they can overcome any personal, psychological or emotional barriers.
- Wake them up and disrupt them from nightmares
- Help them with any socialization barriers and fears that they might be suffering from, coming from previous traumatic experiences, PTSD, stress disorders
- In balance work
- In standing and brace
- Helping to pull a manual wheelchair
- Turning lights on and off
- Opening household doors
- Pushing buttons to open automatic doors in public
- Retrieving dropped items
- Retrieving a phone in an emergency or other command items
- Retrieving items from shelves and counters
- Paying a cashier
- Carrying items in a backpack
- Hearing ear/Signal work
- Any other skill that can help the individual live a more independent life