Page 961 - Total War on PTSD

Rory is trained to pick up on strong emotions and the things leading to them like anger, sadness, things like that. He does nightmare interruption. He is trained to react to it in the most basic way...to press up against me and rest his head on my lap. It's both a cue for me and an intervention. He is letting me know that, if I'm not aware of it, something's going on with me emotionally, and at the same time he is intervening by putting his head there. He'll progress from that to jump up and lay across my lap, which he also does with the 'On' command. If I keep progressing, he will nudge and lick my face. If things get bad, he will bark. His bark is meant to break disassociation, and with me he never barks, but if he does there is a very good reason for it. Driving is a big trigger for me so going down the road he will come up off the back seat and come up under my arm, which tells me he is already picking up on my chemistry of whatever is going on. He is picking up on the hostility...the anger...coming up and he gives me a quick check to remind me of what I am doing and to settle down.
With the nightmare interruptions, he starts with a nudge, will progress to his legs up on my body, will jump fully up on me and lay across me, then will start licking my face, after this he will bark if none of the previous actions worked. Lastly, he will go and turn the lights on. He is actually dual trained. He is a mobility dog as well. So, he's got the additional skills. He was initially trained for mobility and then his PTSD related skills were added. His mobility skills include bracing, balancing, counter-balancing, opening doors, pushing buttons, retrieving items that I can't bend over to pick up, pull a wheelchair, and has a lot of physical ability skills as well.
Since my amputation I have become involved in adaptive sports including Paralympic Biathlon, Hand-cycling, Wheelchair Basketball, Mountain Biking and Adaptive Golf. These activities
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