PONTE VEDRA, Fla — Shiny silver shovels and dogs that save lives. K9s for Warriors breaks ground for the new Chartrand Family Warrior Resource Center at its campus in Ponte Vedra.
"The most important thing it does is it will be a place for our warriors to come home to," explained K9s for Warriors Executive Director Rory Diamond.
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He says the non-profit now is busy training service dogs with veterans diagnosed with PTSD. However, if a veteran who's already graduated from the program needs more services, K9s has no facility for that.
The new resource center, Diamond says, will help when a warrior would like to "retrain his or her service dog or just escape where they can come home to a place where they know they have a warm bed and people who love them."
Diamond said, "This building will be the building they can come home to."
The new facility will also provide more training for veteran graduates in areas such as dog CPR, grooming and legal rights of service dog owners. If a service dog is ready for retirement, the veteran could be paired with a second dog.
Mason is the service dog belonging to Layton Ausbon, an army veteran from the First Coast who came home from overseas with PTSD. He wound up trying several times to take his own life.
Mason is only three years old, but already Ausbon knows the remarkable impact Mason has on his life. Someday, he may want another service dog.
Ausbon says he no longer has any thoughts of suicide.
"Mason makes me happy," he said. "I'm me again."
This week he will interview for a new job. He wants to be in law enforcement. With his new zest for life, Ausbon has developed a gym routine with Mason by his side. Ausbon's routine of supersets and weights comes only with a "new leash on life," a slogan K9s for Warriors uses to describe how its program saves veterans and dogs, which most often come from kill shelters.
Ausbon's victory underscores another key part of the new facility. It will house the first K9s for Warriors Research Institute. Diamond says five years ago there was no hard science to prove service dogs could help veterans manage PTSD. But since then, K9s for Warriors has launched into partnerships with scientists at Purdue University, for example, to do lab studies to prove the point.
It's important because the scientific study due out this year could force the Veterans Administration to pay for service dogs. And it could quiet skeptics.
Diamond says the research will continue to be shared around the world. Already he's seeing how the research is being used in other countries to help victims of trauma heal through service dogs.
The new facility will also be a center for improving access to major airlines, hotel chains and other travel points for warriors with service dogs.
Diamond says K9s for Warriors is estimating 80,000 post- 911 veterans could use its services. The new facility will complete the planned buildings for its campus.
Not far away, K9s for Warriors will build a mega kennel to house 250 dogs in training. The goal is to cut down on the 1 to 1 1/2 years veterans around the country have to wait to come to the program. First Coast News viewers have donated more than $460,000 through a Veterans Day telethon towards building the mega kennel.
K9s for Warriors has a 99% success rate in preventing suicides.
You can find out more about K9s for Warriors here.
