Page 805 - Total War on PTSD

JP is a Blue Merle Great Dane and my Service Dog and the only other dog we have in the house. The lady who gave me JP named all her dogs after something to do with the military with exception of the females whom she named after First Ladies. JP’s real name is Nonjudicial Punishment but it's JP for short. My wife and I actually call him “J” but everyone else knows him as JP. The story with JP was that Janet was doing a lot of research about PTSD because of the issues I was dealing with when I came home. I was really broken when I got back and she was trying to understand it all. She came into contact with this woman on the internet who lived in North Carolina and they became friends via a Facebook page that Janet created named PTSD The Truth in Numbers. Well, one month later Janet was highlighting Service Dog organizations on her page and we made arrangements to take JP just in the role of puppy-raiser for her friends’ organization (on behalf of another Veteran) and he came to us at three months of age in 2011. I was going to train him for someone who needed him more than I did, but I got very attached to JP and I asked if we could keep him instead. It was the first week...actually the first couple of days...when I was working with him a little bit, when Janet said, "Don't you get it? This is the first time in two years that you have smiled and laughed." And I said that it was because he brings me peace.
So that's how JP joined our family. He is just incredible. I trained JP myself with some guidance from the breeder. One of the things that happened was the breeder gave JP to me for free and she taught me how to train him. He does passive protection for me...meaning he blocks people so that they can't come up behind me and startle me...which is very important since my first reaction is to swing. Actually, he blocks from both the front and the back. He has been trained to help me remember to take my medicine because of my short-term memory issues. He lays by my bed at night and, if I start having bad flashbacks or nightmares, he will lick me in the
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