At the University of Arizona, a new study is offering up some proof of what you might already expect to be true about service dogs.
Any dog owner will tell you having a dog will improve your life. But researchers say they now have evidence that a trained service dog can significantly lessen a veteran’s symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
For retired Staff Sergeant Steve Lovegrove, who lives in Oro Valley, that’s proven to be true.
“For years, I didn’t know I had PTSD. I just thought I was angry, you know?” he said. “And then I found out later it was PTSD from that one incident.”
It was back in 1990 when he shipped out to Iraq. On the second day of Operation Desert Shield, his life changed forever.
“I was on a CH 47 Chinook. It’s the kind with the two blades on top,” he recalled. “Our aircraft lost power picking up a large cannon, a 105 Howitzer, and it crashed. So we spent a couple hours picking up all that ammo, and literally disconnected it from the aircraft, and flew it back to our base on one engine, at about 50 feet, and never flew again.”