Page 991 - Total War on PTSD

exaggerating this or something? Then it started getting worse. I can really tell how much better a quality of life I have now than I did before I had Charlotte. I obtained Charlotte from a non- profit group in Ipswich, Massachusetts called the Service Dog Project that focuses on training Great Danes for those with balance issues. They not only train the dogs but they also socialize them and take them to all sorts of venues and into all sorts of situations to ensure that they will be prepared to adjust to any situation that they experience with their Veteran owner. They named all of the dogs in her litter after authors and my dogs’ namesake was Charlotte Bronte. The Service Dog Project provides their Service Dogs to Veterans free of charge. Once they decide that you are to be matched with a particular dog, once your name has come up on the waiting list. Once my name came up, they called and asked if I could come there in a few weeks and go through some training with her to see if the partnership would work out. So, I went out there and stayed on the property in a guest cabin, and you basically stay there with the dog for five or six days as you are learning how to handle the dog in public, how to work on the leashes, how to do all of these things. Because the dogs, at this point, have already spent an entire year training. What they want to see if whether you and the dog match up. If it's a dog that you know the personalities aren't going to clash, then you know it after a few days...and that dog could be a good Service Dog for you. Steve, the trainer who I did all of my training with, he said he could tell the first morning. What they do is give you the dog and you go over to the guest house with the dog, and the dog’s food, and she knows to go outside to use the restroom. And they pretty much, for the next 36 hours say that they will not come and bother you whatsoever. So, you are given that time to get to know the dog...and for the dog to get to know you. So, the first day we came in to do training they could already tell that we were a good fit.
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