Echoes of Camelot

I have always loved the musical “Camelot” and have my Kleenex ready for the last scene when King Arthur tells the stowaway page about the wonderful dream that came true in Camelot. It is a sad ending remembering a special venture, now in shambles, that benefitted many.

This scene often drifts through my consciousness when I remember an incredible program that I designed and helped to implement that impacted the lives of over sixty-two veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a previous blog  (How My Life Went to the Dogs), I relate the story of the creation of the Trauma Assistance Dog (TAD) program at NEADS. Beginning as a pilot program, it was soon adopted as a regular offering for this service dog placement agency. The dogs, which were temperament tested to ensure that they were “unflappable” in the fact of almost anything that had the potential to disturb a veteran with PTSD. The dog might alert the veteran to the sound, person or thing, but recover quickly allowing his human partner to recognize that he[1] was not under threat and this would relieve their anxiety. At the same time we at TAD trained the veteran to use his dog as a comfort, to calm him, relieve anxiety and hypervigilence and be assured that the dog would waken him from nightmares and be there as a calming presence as he recovered. 

The results of our training and placement went far beyond what we had anticipated. Not only did our service dogs calm the veterans’ anxiety, but in so doing this allowed them to go out into public more and lead fuller lives. Their loved ones noticed a marked difference in them. Many spouses who were so disturbed by the veterans PTSD behaviors that they felt desperate and sometimes even ready to leave were helped to give their loved ones another chance.  We, the staff, joked that we had also been responsible for several weddings that might not have happened had the veteran not gotten help with his PTSD. And how any children got to renew or even begin their bonding with Dad or Mom who could now be more emotionally available to them. Veterans told us that we literally saved their lives. Before their dogs, many felt that the only way out was to end it all.

News of our successes spread and I am glad to say that many other service dog agencies now feature successful programs placing dogs with veterans with PTSD. We learned some valuable lessons that some—but not all of these agencies now use. For example the best dog for PTSD is not the rescues that have his or her own scars. Dogs need to be specially bred for this work in order to achieve a temperament that can be calm and in control when the veteran is not. Then, although it is a wonderful experience for a veteran to train a dog, the most successful service dogs are trained by skilled trainers who fully understand PTSD and the triggers veterans’ experience.

A thorough knowledge of PTSD is crucial.  Careful follow up of the veteran-dog team is another important element of a program. We also discovered that involving the veterans’ significant others gave them a better chance of success. There is so much fine tuning that we learned that made our program so successful, that it might require a book to fully cover it. (Stay tuned).

“It’s a great program, “ you may be thinking, “so what its have to do with Camelot?”

I am sad to relate that the TAD program as we ran it for almost twenty years is no more. Significant staffing changes and the de-emphasis on PTSD in the agency as a whole, combined with a new breeding program that has not quite produced the “bomb-proof” dog needed for PTSD work has moved the program into the same shambles that Arthur faced with the mythical Camelot. The returning veterans who were promised a second dog after being so successful with their first have been turned away and new applicants told that they just don’t have the dogs to help them.

When a dream dies, the grief can be heavy. But one of my colleagues told me that I should not be sad that it is over, but rather smile that it happened. That over fifteen years we were able to help so many veterans to have fuller more satisfying lives with service dogs at their sides.

As I thought about what we have accomplished and how it is now no longer, I feel a bit like Arthur but wishing that I had that little page to tell about our Camelot and inspire him to build it again.  But then, as a writer my inclination is to tell my story to whomever will listen. And so, that is how my next book is born.

NOTE: Although I have used the masculine pronoun “he” we also placed with some women veterans although most of our applicants are men. Some experts believe that men and women process PTSD differently.