DogExpress
Ottawa, Canada: Health Canada is providing specialized training for service-dog handlers so that the dogs can help soldiers who have PTSD.
The agency’s drugs use, and addiction programme financed the online training course, which is intended to assist trainers in preparing service animals for veterans, particularly those suffering from drug addiction.
The tool kit was built by a team led by Prof. Colleen Dell, an expert in animal-assisted treatments at the University of Saskatchewan.
Service dogs, according to her studies, can considerably help veterans with PTSD. However, they still make up a small percentage of those who receive service animals.
The professor has been researching the influence of service dogs on veterans suffering from drug dependence and psychological issues after leaving the service since 2015.
Her research discovered that when PTSD veterans were given a service animal, their consumption of alcohol, medicinal and recreational substances, as well as their PTSD symptoms, decreased. Strolling a dog can also “disrupt emotional excess,” according to the study. Some veterans, who were too devastated to leave home, began walking their dogs and socializing.
According to Dell, there are already about 500 service animals used by veterans in Canada and have more development.
The canines are taught to offer veterans comfort, companionship, and assistance and wake them up when they get nightmares.
A team from institutions across Canada, veterans, service-dog groups, and Native elders collaborated to create the course.
It will be distributed to 40 service-dog training organizations that also train canines to help the visually impaired, people with hearing disabilities, or disabled in other ways.
Drug addiction, the necessity of peer mentoring, and the influence of an emotional attachment with dogs on veterans will all be addressed in this training session.
Source: Healthing
in Chandigarh, India. 
