No mind left behind: Dogs helping veterans with PTSD

ALAMOGORDO – For Veterans' Sake, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, has relocated their efforts to the Tularosa Basin.

"Our services are 100 percent free, the counseling and the service dogs if they are elected to get a dog," said For Veterans' Sake President Monty Hutson. "We also work with the immediate family and the reason that is if we have a veteran who's suffering from PTSD and they move back home, the family doesn't know what to do. They don't know how to react, it's not their boy who came back."

The organization was ran out of California for many years until Hutson's friend, Sonny Eaglehawk, encouraged Hutson to visit his ranch in Tularosa. While visiting Otero County, Hutson had a chance meeting with a resident that shifted his perspective.

"We were here for about three days and we did the Christmas parade (in 2015) and we had Saxon, a military dog, in the parade with us," Hutson said. "So we happened to be at IHOP and a young man named Cody Childress came by. He said he'd seen our K-9 unit and wanted to tell us he appreciated what we're doing for the vets. He said, 'I'm a contractor if there's anything I can do, let me know.'"

Hutson told Childress they needed help making the ranch handicap accessible because Eaglehawk is in a wheelchair.

"He asked for the address and before we got back out there, he'd already gone to Home Depot, purchased the lumber and was building ramps," he said. "We asked 'How much do we owe you?' and he said 'Nothing. With what you guys are doing, it's all we can do for you.' I almost shed a tear over that. I slapped Sonny on the shoulder and said It's almost like we found America again. That's what convinced me this is where we needed to be."

In August, For Veterans' Sake permanently moved their efforts to the ranch in Tularosa.

PTSD service dogs are trained to pick up on the scent that was created when stress is triggered and alert the veteran that an attack is coming. Hutson also trains their service dogs in grocery store behavior, court room training, escalator training, water training and airplane training – any future situation a veteran might need them in.

Hutson, who served in the U.S. Army for 6 years, has developed an alternative solution to dealing with a veteran's PTSD with a program called Neuro-Traumatic Resourcing.

"I've been working on my program, Neuro-Traumatic Resourcing, for over 25 years," he said. "It has no prescriptions, no drugs involved in it at all. It's a mixture between interrogation practices and hypnosis. It allows me to break those walls and barriers down really fast."

While Hutson's faced skeptics because it isn't licensed, he says that's not what's important about what he does.

"We are trying to be effective so that if we issue you a service dog, we know how to make the pairing process perfect," he explained. "We're not getting into (veterans) livelihoods and changing their lives, we're allowing them to change their own life. When you receive a service dog, it's a life-changing event and we have to make sure these veterans are ready. If they aren't ready, this service dog is going to end up in the pound."

Another aspect of what they do and that makes For Veterans' Sake different from other organizations is that they work with service members who have been dishonorably discharged.

"People make mistakes," Hutson said. "They slap an officer or do something stupid but they may have put in 10 years of perfect service and then did something wrong. Well, let's honor what they did and try to help them if we can. We don't shy away from those with dishonorable discharges, we look at the criteria and what the situation was and go from there."

For Veterans' Sake also runs a mobile outreach unit and frequently visits truck stops, a place where there's a large population of veterans.

"A lot of veterans, when they get out, they'll go get their license and they'll drive a truck," Hutson said. "It's ideal because they're by themselves and some of them get their own dog to travel with. If they have PTSD, they're not going to go to the VA because they'll be put on a cocktail of drugs that will disqualify them from having a driver's license, driving the big rigs and making their living."

At the truck stops, veterans stop by and open up to Hutson about their time in the military. From those conversations, Hutson said he can see if the veteran needs services.

Hutson said he has lots of community outreach opportunities planned, including a program with the public schools where children could help with the service dog training. This weekend, For Veterans' Sake will be out at Tractor Supply, 2900 N. White Sands Blvd., to meet the community, answer questions about service dogs and do service dog demonstrations. On Saturday they will be there from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information about For Veterans' Sake, call 585-7890, visit their Facebook page or visit their website at www.forveteranssake.org