An average of 22 American combat veterans commit suicide every day.
That was the finding of a 2012 study by the Department of Veterans Affairs and part of what inspired Shannon Walker to form Northwest Battle Buddies. The Battle Ground non-profit organization trains service dogs and gifts them to combat veterans at no charge.
For hundreds of thousands of military veterans who see combat, the war doesn’t end when they return home. Many have been under fire, have seen their buddies killed or have witnessed death up close. These are types of events that can lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
“My father taught me to believe that when you’re in the presence of a veteran, you’re in the presence of a hero, even though he never considered himself one,” Walker tells me. When a veteran walked through the door at Man’s Best Friend — the canine kennel, boarding and training facility that Walker also owns — and asked her to train his dog to help him deal with his PTSD, that got Walker’s attention. After successfully training the veteran’s dog and seeing the impact it had on him, “I thought of Northwest Battle Buddies right there. I had no idea how hard it would be, but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” says Walker.
Today, Northwest Battle Buddies procures and trains an average of 12 dogs each year, pairing them with combat veterans suffering from PTSD. It’s an extensive process that begins when the dog is a puppy and takes months of intense training by dozens of volunteers. Before a dog is even deemed ready to begin training at the age of approximately seven months, he or she is carefully raised in a volunteer “puppy raiser” home, followed by seven to twelve months of specialized training to become a service dog.
The dogs are not the only ones who have to qualify for the Northwest Battle Buddies program. “Our veterans go through an application process and careful vetting to make sure the dogs will go into a solid, stable home,” Walker explains. “Then those veterans come in here and work with me for six weeks, five days a week, to learn how to train, navigate the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) rules and make sure it is a proper pairing.”
Walker says the pairing of the veteran and the service dog is imperative to the success of the team. “The veterans go through six weeks of training, leaving their homes from all over the country. Sometimes they’re sleeping on couches, or bringing their trailers or are in hotels,” Walker says. “Because the hope that that dog represents to them is about a different type of life: a future with independence. They’re willing to pay the price for what that dog signifies for them.”
When asked what the most fulfilling thing is about Northwest Battle Buddies’ mission, Walker’s eyes well up. “We’re saving lives,” she says. “When you see these men and women, they have so much hope for what the service dog is going to provide, but they’re so broken. And they served our country, and we’re free because of them. But they’re in pain and what we do significantly changes the quality of their life.”
Training, raising and preparing each dog for service costs Northwest Battle Buddies approximately $25,000. In addition to in-kind donations in the form of dog food, supplies and veterinary care, Northwest Battle Buddies depends heavily on donations from the public to continue to further its mission. The organization shares space with Man’s Best Friend and has no facility of its own, so it is embarking on its first-ever capital campaign to help finance the construction of a much-needed boarding and training space.
In May 2018, Northwest Battle Buddies will welcome Marcus Luttrell, who received the Navy Cross for his actions in 2005 facing Taliban fighters during Operation Red Wing (an experience that was documented by Luttrell in his book Lone Survivor and inspired the 2013 film of the same name). Guests will hear Luttrell speak and take part in a silent auction benefitting Northwest Battle Buddies. For tickets and information, call Northwest Battle Buddies at 360-601-9744 or visit the Northwest Battle Buddies website.
Walker says the two greatest moments at Northwest Battle Buddies are the day veterans meet their service dogs for the first time and the day they walk away together.
“It’s elation,” she describes. “You have so many people working so hard, all volunteers. We have very few paid staff people. But that’s what keeps us going. When you see the lives that are changed, and you have a mom come up and say, ‘thank you for saving my son,’ or a wife say, ‘thank you for saving my husband,’ but we didn’t save them, they saved themselves. They had to go through it and find the courage to overcome things they would never share with anybody. They succeeded, and they survived.”
To learn more about Northwest Battle Buddies, click here.
