Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 97

DOG THERAPY

be sent home early being able to complete a deployment.
Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft, a Navy psychologist who deployed with the U.S. Marines, chronicled such an effect.
She encountered a marine who was struggling with
depression and PTSD during deployment. “She told
me her future was hopeless,” wrote Kraft. “She spoke
of falling asleep and never awakening.”26 Kraft worked
with the marine, using both antidepressant medication
and behavioral therapy, with only limited progress.
She worried she would need to send the marine stateside, mid-deployment. However, a few weeks later, the
marine came back to see Kraft, and the psychologist’s
concerns disappeared. According to Kraft, the marine
appeared happy:
“Our unit has adopted this puppy,” she started
as she sat down. I had heard about several
groups of marines finding the orphaned puppies of wild dogs on base and making them unofficial mascots, feeding them with shipments
of puppy chow sent from home …27
Kraft had tried all of the standard medical treatments
for PTSD for this marine, but reached a point at which
there were no other known medical options apart from
removal from the location of the inciting event. Then,
the marine got a dog, she got better, and she was able to
finish her deployment.
Kraft relates that since then, she has heard of other
examples of marines adopting dogs, with similar therapeutic outcomes. These dogs apparently played an important role by helping comfort and facilitating psychological healing among other marines in the same way. In
effect, the troops were self-medicating by bringing these
dogs into the units.28
Additional data comes from the Army, where dogs
have been useful in facilitating the mission of Combat
and Operational Stress Control (COSC) teams. These
teams “provide education and therapy in the theater of
war.”29 The Army began attaching dogs to COSC teams
in 2007 in an initiative that originally sent two dogs
to Iraq.30 The dogs accompanied their handlers and
were able to serve as icebreakers between the medical
practitioner and the soldiers. In a U.S. Army Medical
Department Journal article, William Kroll wrote,
“Whether in a one-on-one or group setting, members
of the COSC teams have reported that service members would talk to them for longer periods of time
than if they were alone.”31 In another report, Lorie
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2016

Fike, Cecilia Najera, and David Dougherty wrote of a
Labrador retriever, Albert, which was a part of one of
the COSC units. His handler was grateful to have the
dog assist in therapy:
[Albert] was able to ease tension of many of
our clients in order to assist in their willingness to seek out the COSC unit for care and
to openly discuss the issues that had troubled
them … The ability to travel with Albert to
each unit within our contingency operations
base provided opportunities to engage our
clients from a preventative standpoint …
As we would visit a unit, news would travel
to adjacently oriented units that would also
request our services. This only further assisted
our detachment in trying to reach all of the
potentially at-risk [combat and operational
stress reaction] casualties.32
The report observes that members of the COSC
teams noted how the dogs provided multiple benefits
across the entire mental health process, from setting up
meetings to getting soldiers coming back for appointments: “The primary handlers noticed an increase in
requests for unit visits and commands scheduled more
commander briefs.”33 The dogs also helped to de-stigmatize the mental health intervention because the interaction now seemed to be about the dog and no longer as
much about the psychologist or other care provider. As
the report noted elsewhere, “The therapy dogs allowed
the COSC units to market their services in a unique
way, because they were able to post flyers and write
stories about the therapy dogs.”34 An additional collateral
impact was that unit commanders seemed more likely
to allow the COSC prevention teams to meet with units
when there was a dog involved:
The dog’s presence helped the therapist seem
more approachable and assisted with the flow
of conversation. Senior officers and enlisted
personnel took more time to listen to the mental health staff and find out what services were
available for soldiers. The mental health team
also walked through motor pools and aircraft
hangars, and throughout the [forward operating base’s] work and living spaces to make contact with service members and to try to gauge
the stress and morale levels. If the therapy dog
was present, service members appeared more
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