By Jake Luplow
In Eula Biss’ essay The Pain Scale, she writes: “At night, I ice my pain. My mind descends into a strange sinking calm. Any number multiplied by zero is zero. And so with ice and me. I am nullified. I wake up to melted ice and the warm throb of my pain returning.” Precise and relatable. We all experience pain, to one degree or another, and we all seek that certain relief. We all seek to slide down the pain scale to the arguable notion of: no pain at all.
Imagine for a second a soldier who sustains a traumatic brain injury (TBI), who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and who can no longer serve in the armed forces as a result of his disabilities. Now, consider this: he comes home to a life foreign from what he once knew. And he can no longer tend to simple tasks that he once saw to with much ease. This man’s name is Aaron McCarthy.
Aaron McCarthy and Jeanmarie Kautzman, CMSgt (Ret), Program Manager/Head Trainer, co-founded The All-American Dogs Foundation, located in Olympia. This foundation is the relief many wounded soldiers, like Aaron, have come to rely upon as they seek stability and pain relief in their world: the amalgamation of life’s demands, PTSD, TBIs, and other various illnesses.
After Aaron was diagnosed with an illness he wasn’t prepared for and was unwilling to rely upon medication he had been prescribed, he set out to find an alternative means of dealing with his illness—highly trained service dogs.
Since then, this foundation has evolved into a growing program that provides service dogs to wounded soldiers through the help of not only Aaron and Jean but also through team members Stephanie Gerken and Kathy Kupper, trainers and puppy raisers.
Jean gives an example as to why these dogs are so important, “PTSD dogs can lower blood pressure and improve a person’s overall physical and mental health. They can help adjust serotonin levels, not to mention motivate people to get out on walks with their dogs.” And Aaron acknowledges, “These dogs are medicine. Say you go out shopping and have a PTSD episode, that dog is going to automatically sense that and he is going to pull that out of you. He is going to draw you away from whatever is bothering you at that moment. These dogs are trained to sense your heart arrhythmias and know when you’re anxious and automatically get you out of that state of mind.”
Skeptical? The foundation and its highly trained professionals put $10,000 into each dog, ensuring each one to be not just a loyal companion but also a vital instrument in each soldier’s recovery. Specialist Richard Carson, Ret., says, “Before I got my dog, I didn’t really want to go anywhere or do anything. And now I go out and do things, and I feel more comfortable around people.”
So, what does the training process look like?
According to Jean, a puppy will go to one of their puppy raisers where they learn all of the normal obedience commands, plus a few extra.
Then, sometime around fifteen months of age, the puppy will move to full-time training, beginning formal service dog training, which can take up to six months. If during the six month training period they feel that the dog is ready to be matched with a veteran or a veteran’s family member, they introduce the dog to the individual. Then, the trainer will provide “in home” training.
Eventually, the puppy will go to the person they matched them with on an agreed schedule to include overnight trips where the trainer will continue to work with them until they pass the Canine Good Citizen Test and finally the Public Access Test.
Through the various people I spoke with, one thing has become quite certain: their foundation excels because they’re a team. Be it Jean, Aaron, Stephanie, or Kathy, they all have their different duties and all are working for the livelihoods of many soldiers who just want a sense of normalcy.
A lot of us mask our pain; I know I do. But just as Biss writes, “I wake up to melted ice and the warm throb of my pain returning.” There has to be a way to treat pain in relation to recovering, to getting better. And that is what the All-American Dogs Foundation is doing in our community.
The absence of hope can make for a bleak existence. But, sometimes, hope can be seen with more clarity through the displacement of light, through the lens of darkness.
I will leave you with this, from the mouth of Aaron McCarthy, “Why should we walk alone in the dark when there is so many of us in the light?” A short time later he said, “It is truly an inspiring thing when you see these veterans with their dogs. It’s like this: The doctor tells a veteran he will never be able to walk again because he is paralyzed from the waist down. And you think about that and you wonder, ok, will that person ever be able to drive again or have a kid or ride a bike. Then, one day, you see him walking, and his wife is pregnant, and there he is strutting with his cane and service dog at his side and you say to him, ‘That dog was your inspiration, wasn’t it?’ And he says, ‘Yep!’”
The All-American Dogs Foundation is currently reorganizing into a new non-profit organization. Inquiries can be directed to allamerdogs@gmail.com.
