Molly’s wet nose swept the tiled floors of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs as she let out a huff and laid beside her owner Adam LeGrand, a veteran and Maxwell graduate student. LeGrand unleashed her as he sat next to his colleagues — fellow veterans Louis Belluomini and Shilo Schluterman — and their dogs Star and Javelin.

The three dogs sported service vests with “DO NOT PET” written on the back in bold, white letters. One laid under the table, another faced the door and one was at LeGrand’s feet, each dutifully on high alert.

Belluomini, LeGrand and Schluterman were in Syracuse this weekend for a screening of the film “A New Leash on Life: The K9s for Warriors Story.” The documentary, which showed in Grant Auditorium on Saturday, features the three veterans who received their dogs free of charge from K9s For Warriors. The organization aims to support veterans who return from service with post-traumatic stress disorder.

For these three veterans, their dogs are more than a tool to help with day-to-day recovery — they have become attached at the hip.

Schluterman served from 1999 to 2014 as an aircraft mechanic and later in maintenance operations. Before getting Javelin, or Javie, Schluterman said she couldn’t imagine leaving her house. But just a few months ago, she traveled to Guatemala, a trip she said she couldn’t have done without her service dog.

“You’re having to take so much medication to be there, but you’re not really present,” she said. “I didn’t even really engage, I was just a zombie. It was kind of like, ‘I’m sitting here, you see me, but I’m empty.’”

Courtesy of Shilo Schluterman

Shilo Schluterman said that she no longer takes her medications since getting her service dog, Javelin, who will put his nose in her face to calm her down.

LeGrand, who served as a medic from 2001 to 2011, has minimized his 20 daily medications down to just one, he said.

He compared his PTSD to an average bad day. After a bad day, someone can just get out of bed and carry on. But for him, it wasn’t that easy. Weeks of pizza boxes sat in his kitchen, he said, even though the trash was thirty feet outside his apartment.

Molly changed that for LeGrand. After receiving Molly, the new responsibility forced him to get outside, improving his life one day at a time. First, LeGrand checked the mail, and later, he was even able to go to the grocery store.

Not only does Molly help with everyday tasks, but she protects LeGrand by watching his surroundings.

“I don’t have to worry about the noise, it’s just me and my dog and whatever else. My dog makes that possible,” he said.

She even helps LeGrand with his parenting. At his daughter’s gymnastic meets, where stadiums can reach up to 20,000 people, he said Molly helps him feel comfortable.

Molly works to calm him when he has night terrors, LeGrand said. He said Molly works faster than any drug he’s ever taken, and she makes him realize that he’s okay.

For Schluterman, Javie made life possible again too. When her mind is telling her she’s in Afghanistan, Javie brings her back to reality, she said. He’ll put his paws in her lap or his nose in her face in an attempt to calm her down and remind her that she’s in a classroom, not a war zone.

“I’m like, okay, I’m not being attacked because there’s this dog whose face is in my face,” she said, laughing. “It doesn’t match up with the physical touch of this dog’s wet nose.”

Belluomini, who served from 2006 to 2014 as a military police officer as well as doing psychological operations, said it was when his wife became pregnant that he realized he needed help.

Before receiving his service dog Star, he was dangerously sleepwalking, grabbing weapons in the middle of the night and waking up in a corner of the house. He said he hid his struggles for a long time because of his jobs — they would take his security clearance away if they found out he had PTSD.

“I was trying to deal with it on my own, and I got too close to suicide, you know, too many times,” he said. “I’m just lucky that I made it to the point that I got out of the military, got a different job, and could say, you know, I need help.”

Courtesy of Louis Belluomini

Louis Belluomini received his service dog, Star, after serving as a military police officer from 2006 to 2014. Before receiving Star, Belluomini suffered from dangerous sleep deprivation.

 

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reported that the suicide rate for veterans was one and a half times higher than that of nonveterans. For the three veterans, service dogs were their final resort, their last hope, said Schluterman.

Star gave Belluomini the opportunity to save lives again as a paramedic, something he wouldn’t have been able to do before. He utilizes Star for pediatrics — children will get in the ambulance and he’ll let them pet her so that they aren’t scared.

The process of getting a service dog from K9s For Warriors can take between 15 to 18 months, but for special circumstances like Belluomini’s, the process can be expedited. LeGrand said there are efforts to quicken the process overall, but the training system for the dogs is long and extensive.

What got LeGrand through his three-year waiting period was planning the future for him and his dog and what they were going to do together once they were united.

“It’s the first time I cried for emotional pain, and I can’t tell you how many years it was. Easily two decades,” LeGrand said, as he thought back to meeting Molly for the first time. “I started crying my eyeballs out when I learned her name.”

Molly gave him the opportunity to live life again.

LeGrand expects that more service animals will be on campus with student veterans, but with that comes the need for educating people about service dogs, specifically when it’s appropriate to interact with them.

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When service animals are on duty and people want to pet them, they can become overstimulated and unable to do their job for their owner, Schluterman said. She said some dogs might be able to handle one or two people interacting with them at the same time, but that it also depends on the day and the situation.

They’re not trying to be rude when they refuse to let someone pet their dogs, Belluomini said, but it’s hard to not sound rude when they say no. He said that if people see service dogs on campus and want to pet them, they should ask first. If the owner says no, it’s not personal, but rather because the dog is on duty.

“Service animals are medical equipment,” he said. “People can read her vest that says ‘SERVICE DOG, DO NOT PET,’ but it doesn’t stop. Feel free to wave and say hi, but please don’t interact with the dog.”

The veterans’ service dogs act as both a tool and a companion to help their owners live everyday life. Without the dogs, LeGrand said, they wouldn’t be where they are today.

“When they say a new leash on life — and the movie gets this great — it’s like my life started over again, and I had the opportunity to come back to school. I got the opportunity to do this,” he said. “Now when I get, like, two steps up, I’m like, this is higher than I’ve ever been. How many more steps can I go?”

Published on November 11, 2018 at 9:31 pm

Contact Brooke: bnkato@syr.edu