- [Natasha] Coming up tonight on "Chasing the Dream."

- I've been in professional dog training for 44 years.

I got into veteran service dog training specifically because veterans in the community found my Myrph's Dog Training website and I became inundated with inquiries from veterans who have a mental health disability and they were banging down my door.

- It's a daunting task for veterans a lot of the times.

Some of the difficulties can be having to reintegrate back into your own home.

Some veterans have deployed multiple times within a short period of time, so just kinda fitting back into your actual own home.

- Because I was drafted in '71 and I was 19 at the time.

So I had PTSD before I went in the military and when I got there it just enhanced it more.

But I didn't realize I had PTSD 'til I came to Bath.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] WSKG thanks the following for their support of this project.

The Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation, the Corning Incorporated Foundation, M&T Bank, UHS, and viewers like you, thank you.

- Good evening and thanks for joining us.

In 2019, 17.4 million military veterans lived in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Recent studies estimate that almost 13% of veterans suffer from some form of post traumatic stress disorder, commonly referred to as PTSD.

PTSD can make even simple daily tasks like going grocery shopping or getting a good night's sleep extremely traumatic or even impossible.

We visited the Stand With Me Assistance Dog Team Training program in Binghamton, New York, to see how this organization is working to improve quality of life for veterans suffering from a service-related mental health disability.

- I went in the summer right after my senior high school year and I served from '78 to 1999.

And you'd think as a Marine, as this big, huge, tough person and can handle anything.

Well, I thought the normal procedures is the way that I was acting and suffering and being upset and angry most of the time, I just thought it was a natural state of bein' a Marine.

And then the nightmares were so real, were so real.

I was fightin' and kicking and all this and that.

And every morning when I would wake up, it was like somebody threw a bucket of water on me, 'cause that was the cold sweats.

I think one of the biggest things that got me over the hump was Myrph and her training with me with Shiloh and bein' able to have Shiloh there.

(soft piano music) - A big line of similarity runs strongly through the veterans with PTSD.

I'm finding that the tasks that we teach to alleviate symptoms are sometimes very similar.

And one of the more common ones is nightmare waking.

By the time they wake up from the nightmare they've been retraumatized.

And so the dogs can be taught to sense when a nightmare is beginning.

A veteran will always have a change in breathing pattern or twitching that begins.

There's some kind of a physical sign that is a red alert to the dog.

We can train the dog to go wake the veteran up before the nightmare gets rolling and is traumatizing again.

At this time, the VA will pay for service dog expenses and acquisition for veterans who have a physical disability.

They will not touch nor pay a penny for a veteran, who has a service-connected mental health disability.

The traditional model of service dog acquisition, now there are many organizations who raise funds and provide service dogs for veterans, but there's a waiting list of seven to eight years to get one of those dogs.

And if a veteran wants to pay for an already trained service dog, the cost range is somewhere between 20,000 and $50,000.

The Stand With Me program, we are an owner-trainer model of service dog acquisition.

That means that the handler, who is disabled, has somewhere between one and two years worth of lessons in dog training and handling skills.

Depending on whether a veteran is an easy trainer and the dog is an easy trainer, we might be able to get them ready to pass their test in nine months to a year.

And the cost of having that happen probably comes to about 2,500 to $3,000.

And if a dog is particularly difficult, or a veteran needs a lot of extra coaching in dog handling, and it takes two years, it might be as much as $5,000.

But for this specific population, people with a mental health disability, particularly veterans who are so motivated to do this project I think it is far superior and cost-effective, and having them engage in the training project on their own and learn dog-training skills is as therapeutic as having the dog with them.

(soft piano music) - I got out of the Navy in 1997, I got married in 1999.

Have a beautiful daughter.

Even though all these wonderful things were happening, I was still having a really hard time dealing with social situations.

And as time went on, my symptoms got worse.

And finally, I reached out to Myrph, which is when I found Ruger.

And it was a lot, a lot, a lot of work.

I almost gave up a lotta times.

And if it wasn't for Myrph, I think I would've given up.

I think he makes me more confident.

He makes me realize that I can do things that I wouldn't have done before.

And my husband and my children have said that I'm a different person with Ruger around.

I don't look behind my back.

I don't get nervous and say I need to leave, because Ruger's there, that's his job.

(soft piano music) - Got out of the Army in 2008.

I was diagnosed with PTSD through the VA. My counselor thought it was a good idea to get a service dog.

Abby's a German shepherd dog.

She's a year and a half old.

The service dog training work has been very beneficial, very therapeutic for me.

It keeps me focused.

Keeps my mind on the good stuff and not the bad stuff.

Knowing that she's there unconditionally has changed my life.

Some days I have bad days and I wouldn't have been able to make it through without her.

She has literally saved my life.

She is always there with me.

She's with me 24/7, and we go everywhere together.

(soft piano music) - It is very important for community members to understand the differences between service dogs, emotional support dogs, and therapy dogs.

It's very common for the general public to assume that all three of those terms are interchangeable and that they're the same.

And they're extremely different from one another.

A service dog has public access rights that they can only accompany a disabled person.

So if someone is claiming to have a service dog, but they are not disabled themselves, they're actually breaking the law.

So the federal law is called the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And that allows people who are disabled to have a service dog with them at all times, anywhere they wish to bring their service dog.

They have to be exceptionally well-behaved and they also have to be trained to do at least two tasks that help each disabled person with that specific disability.

Emotional support dogs usually accompany someone, who has a psychiatric diagnosis, and are being treated for that psychiatric diagnosis, but they're not disabled by it.

And so their doctor can prescribe for them that they have a emotional support dog.

And that does give them the right under the FHA, the federal Fair Housing Act to have a dog in housing where dogs are not typically allowed, if their doctor has prescribed it.

But emotional support dogs, commonly they'll wear a vest that says ESA.

They do not have public access rights.

So you can maybe see them legally in places that are dog-friendly businesses.

but restaurants and places where dogs are not allowed, emotional support dogs do not have the legal right to be there.

Therapy dogs are entirely different.

There is no law that protects a therapy dog.

And they do not have the right to go anywhere where dogs are not allowed.

They get special invitations to go to places to provide therapy with their human handler, to people who are lonely in nursing homes, to people who are traumatized and sad who are in hospice care centers, and children's hospitals where kids struggle, places where people are badly traumatized.

So people like myself, I'm also a therapy dog tester and handler, we can arrive at those places with our therapy dogs to give people comfort.

But that's with special invitation, it's not a legal right.

The three categories of dogs are distinctly different from one another.

And it would be great if the general public would learn the differences and understand them.

I've been in professional dog training for 44 years.

I got into veteran service dog training specifically, because veterans in the community found my Myrph's Dog Training website, and I became inundated with inquiries from veterans who have a mental health disability, and they were banging down my door.

Veterans are a population that is typically labeled as a group of people who are difficult to engage in helpful services.

They're very proud and they don't want help and they don't reach out and ask for help.

And yet they came to me looking for this kind of help.

And it's consistent across the board.

This is the help that they want.

And I think it's really important that when you offer human services to people that you give them what they want to help themselves and not something that we think they should have.

I've always been very happy to do sliding-scale fees for people who are struggling financially.

But even at a sliding-scale fee that's 50% of my normal training fees, weekly lessons for a year to two years adds up and it's something that someone who's living on a disability income just doesn't have.

Somebody said, "You should start a non-profit, so you can raise funds for the training fees.

And so that you can offer training to the veterans for no charge."

We got our first veteran student signed up and started lessons in March of 2017.

We've now had 26 veterans pass through our doors.

There are 12 graduates and seven current students.

And so that's part of it.

We've also started a mentorship program, so our more experienced graduates sign up to help some of the newbies who are just joining the program.

So we're tryin' to think of various things to keep veterans engaged in the community and the veteran dog training community over the long haul, so they don't feel abandoned after they've completed the program, the initial program.

All of the veterans who have service dogs, the suicide rate is a fraction of what it is.

It's less than 1%.

Service dogs almost eliminate the suicide problem.

And more than that, they really improve quality of life for veterans.

- Welcome back.

My guest tonight also works to help guide veterans through post-military life challenges.

Cara Tilton is a veteran herself, having served in the United States Marine Corps for nine years, including a tour in Iraq where she earned the Navy and Marine Corps achievement medal.

After her service, she went on to earn her master's degree in business administration.

Cara now works as an outreach specialist at the Binghamton Vet Center and is the vice president of the Southern Tier Veteran's Support Group.

Thank you for joining us tonight Cara.

- Thank you for having me.

- So Cara, you're familiar with the group that we just heard about Stand With Me because you're gonna be getting a dog yourself.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- I have been very involved with Myrph for quite some time now, just through the veteran's coalition that we have here through the Southern Tier.

As a matter of fact, I get my puppy next weekend and I will be starting my training to get my service dog with Stand With Me.

- That's exciting.

That's really cool, congratulations.

- [Cara] Thank you.

- So you served in the U.S. Marine Corps for nine years.

Can you talk a little bit about what led you to that and how your experience brought you to where you are now?

- My journey is probably like a lot of people's.

Most people think a lotta people go in right at 18 years old.

I actually did not join until I was 23.

At 23, I joined the Marine Corps.

So March 26, 2001, right before 9/11.

And I ended up deploying to Iraq for a few days shy of seven months in 2004.

Then, I get back and then I get stationed where I'm from, which is New Orleans, right before Katrina hit.

So it was kind of another type of catastrophe that I had to kind of go from one to the next.

Ended up getting out while I was in New Orleans because of my injuries.

I got married.

So my husband got stationed down in Newburgh, New York at the Stewart Air National Guard Base, and that's how I ended up in New York.

And then as I was going through my process of finishing up my degree at Mount St. Mary down in Newburgh, I was in counseling as well at a vet center down in Middletown, which I still am currently.

I tell people all the time, not only am I an employee, but I am also a client of a vet center.

So my clinician, she was like, okay what's the next steps?

I know you wanna get back into government, I know you wanna work.

Well, my dad's a pastor.

So she looked at it, she said to me, she said, "You've been doing this your whole life.

Evangelism is outreach.

It's the same thing you got it."

And I was like, ding, ding, ding, okay.

So that's how I ended up doing this position.

And just realizing that I was in a position, a better position after receiving counseling for so long that I was able to help people who were just like me.

So that's how I ended up here.

- That's great, that's great.

So tell us a little bit about what your job entails and how are you supporting veterans?

- My job entails, what it is outreach.

I go out into the community and either give in-service trainings, just out there giving people information as to the services that we offer, specifically at the vet center, which is readjustment counseling for veterans and their families, military sexual trauma and bereavement cases.

We have eligibility requirements, but we also do humanitarian visits, where people who aren't eligible for the services, we can see them up until they get where they need to go.

We refer to a lot of community agencies, whether that's VA or whether that's any community agency who works with veterans.

So we're tryin' the best that we can to reach people.

- Right, right.

And so what are some of the challenges that face our veterans, especially those that are kind of tryin' to reintegrate back into society after being abroad for so long.

- It's a daunting task for veterans a lot of times.

Some of the difficulties can be having to reintegrate back into your own home.

Some veterans have deployed multiple times within a short period of time.

So just kind of fitting back into your actual own home.

Your family members seeing you as somebody different, not really knowing how to, whether that's approach you, or talk to you, or just thinking like, "Oh, I'm unsure if they're like one of these other veterans who may be unstable."

And I tell people all the time, don't use that language.

We have challenges just like anybody else who has been through a difficult situation.

But the challenges are just trying to recognize where you fit in.

Because a lot of times in our heads, we think, "Hey, I'm gonna do this for 20 years.

This is my plan, this is what I have."

And now all of a sudden, in the blink of an eye, oh I have something new.

Translating job skills from the military to civilian jobs.

And then employers also recognizing that these people have skills.

We don't want people to think that, oh, we've been to war, so they can't process or function in these environments as well.

And we absolutely can.

We still may go through some struggles and some difficulties and some challenges, but we work around them.

And so part of my outreach is also working with companies, as I worked with the Southern Tier Veteran Support Group a few years ago, working with employees and letting them know how to then translate some of that and then let them know a lot of the tools that veterans can bring to the table.

- So let's talk about that.

What kinds of services are available to veterans locally that people might not be aware of?

- The services available here are as far as VA's concerned, you have the Binghamton Vet Center and you also have the Binghamton CBOC, which people don't get that acronym, so it's the Binghamton Community-Based Outpatient Clinic.

So they are both VA, they're separate entities, where the outpatient clinic is what it is.

It's a medical facility.

The Vet Center, specifically is mental health.

And we just do clinical services there.

Like I say, we also do the referral services to wherever, whether it's another VA organization or if it's an organization within a community that can better serve a veteran.

We also work with any community agency.

A lotta people don't realize that community agencies have veteran-specific services, whether that's Department of Labor, Catholic charities, whomever, they have something that they work with veterans.

And so, we try to make sure that we're all connected, so that we can help a veteran out any way that we possibly can.

- Right, right, sounds like a very holistic approach.

- We try our best, we try our best, yes.

- Well, you talked about the outreach work that you do and obviously with all of these different services that are available, different groups that are available, I'm sure it can be confusing to people how to best navigate that.

So it sounds like you're playing the role of navigator almost.

- Yes, most certainly, most certainly.

And sometimes it's a little hard to navigate through and to pull out what people are really looking for.

But we get to it and if I need to spend 10 to 30 minutes on the phone with you to get it, then we'll work on that, we'll do that.

- So we're all going through this global pandemic, and that's having an impact on so many different aspects of our lives.

How are veterans being impacted specifically by COVID?

- I will say that the pandemic has brought out some challenges.

Of course, the virtual thing, we know that this is, it was there before, now it's prominent in everything that we do now.

That was a difficult time for veterans to not be able to see each other.

Missing out on some of the events that we've had going on, whether it was the baseball games, if we had a Veterans' Day at the baseball game.

We had the annual Veterans' Day picnic, where people were able to come out and just join and have a good time.

So they're missing out on all of that connection.

Connection is a big thing with veterans.

And it, it can get to the point where, and specifically what I'll do, and I'll not say all veterans, but with PTSD and the depression, this was some of the only times that they got out of their house.

But it's getting better.

I can say that it's getting better.

Some people are realizing, hey, I still need some type of connection, so let me at least try to work on this.

It's still not easy.

So hopefully at some point we can connect back with veterans and just kind of say, "Hey, we've been here and we're gonna continue to be here, but it's good to see your face.

It's good to actually see you, yeah."

- What are some things that the general public can do to help support our veterans?

What would you like to see happen sort of on a community level that could have a positive impact?

- To not assume the worst.

If you see a veteran, not to assume the worst.

I will say this community is pretty good at supporting their veterans.

There are people just in general, who have no idea because they don't have a veteran in their family.

They don't have friends who have veterans in their families.

And so they just assume from the movies on TV and things of that nature.

Don't assume that we're the worst of the worst because we absolutely aren't.

We're very resilient.

We bounce back.

We struggle to get there sometimes, but we bounce back and just supporting, donating to the not-for-profit organizations, like Stand With Me, who was totally funded by grants and donations, as far as to help veterans receive their service animals.

Also Southern Tier Veterans' Support Group, The Twin Tier Honor Flight, even them, donating to help get these veterans to see their memorials.

Donate your time, donate your finances if you can, even if it's $10 here or there.

And again, don't assume that you're dealin' with the worst of the worst.

You're actually probably dealing with some of the best of the best.

- Well, thank you for joining us tonight, Cara.

It was great to learn more about your organization and what you do for veterans.

- Thank you for having me here, it was a pleasure.

- [Natasha] To find help or to become involved with issues discussed during tonight's episode, please consider reaching out to the following organizations.

For a more complete list of resources visit wskg.org/dream.

(soft piano music) - I'm originally from Wilmington, Delaware.

I didn't come to Bath until 2000.

Well, I was homeless for over 30 something years.

And I used drugs over 30 something years.

And a lot of it is because of the military.

Because I drafted in '71, and I was 19 at the time.

So I had PTSD before I went in the military.

And when I got there it just enhanced it more.

But I didn't realize I had PTSD 'til I came to Bath.

I was in denial.

I went through two marriages that I destroyed because of the drug use and my mood swings.

I still didn't realize it was me.

And I just kept getting high.

And I kept reliving those dreams and things that was happening, that I've seen, and I just wanted to escape.

And I didn't care anymore, I just wanted to give up.

In 2000, my mother she said, "Charles, I prayed for you.

This time I prayed that God either get you some help or just take you out because I'm tired."

What a blow that was to me.

I'm sleeping in a indoor parking lot, woke up that morning and saw myself for the first time in a passenger mirror on a vehicle.

And somethin' said, you're better than this.

And that was grace and mercy.

So it pulled me out and I saw hell.

And ever since then things have been different.

I have 20 years clean and serene from drugs and alcohol.

So it's been a journey.

I took a lot from people and now I need to give back.

Tryin' to talk to a lotta young people about drugs.

And a lot of veterans are addicts.

And it's hard, it's really hard.

The suicide rate for veterans now is outrageous.

It really is.

It hurts me to see a fellow veteran just give up.

I try to stress about there is hope.

The acronym for hope is hearing other people's experiences.

You have purpose, you have purpose.

Find your purpose.

God owns my past, God owns my future, but he gives me the choice just for today.

I just try to be better than I was the day before.

That's all I try to do.

Sometimes I am, and sometimes I'm not, but I keep goin'.

(soft piano music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] WSKG thanks the following for their support of this project, the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation, the Corning Incorporated Foundation, M&T Bank, UHS, and viewers like you, thank you.