Service Dog: An Idaho Army Veteran Struggles With Post Traumatic Stress
This week we are bringing you the story of Dan Sperry. He's a U.S. Army veteran from Idaho and for the last two decades he's lived with post traumatic stress disorder or P.T.S.D. We met Dan in 2010 and began to record his story of how he's found a new life by using a service dog.
We know as many as 20 percent of military veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have come back with P.T.S.D. And veterans from the first Gulf War - Desert Storm - also have suffered from this condition.
Dan is over six feet tall and brawny. He sits in the backyard of his Meridian home, sipping a lemonade. He doesn’t sit very long. Dan is constantly on the move. He fidgets and he’ll jump up suddenly and disappear into the house. “I just stay home, I avoid society all together, which now I’ve gotten to a point where I hardly even return phone calls, I don’t go out, I don’t go anywhere by myself.”
Dan, who is 44, wasn’t always like this. His wife of 25 years, Angie, says he was open and outgoing before he went to the Persian Gulf in 1990. “I knew when Dan served and went to the Persian Gulf that he would physically come back but I knew something in him would be injured,” says Angie, “I just didn’t know the physical and mental injuries that he would have.”
Dan was serving in Germany when he was sent to the Gulf as part of Desert Shield. He was in an artillery unit that went to Saudi Arabia into Iraq and Kuwait. Angie says Dan’s job during the war was, as she puts it, to blow stuff up. He was in the Gulf until the spring of 1991 when he came home and decided to leave the Army. He got a job, first in construction, then as an emergency medical technician. But something was wrong.
“All it takes is hearing a jet, loud noise, a certain, even diesel exhaust, just a certain thing and it just takes me away, they call it flashbacks I guess,” says Dan.
Dan started to have flashbacks of his time in the Gulf. Night terrors brought the war back in vivid detail. He had trouble relating with other people. “Some people just, don’t know when to shut their mouth and they ask some questions that I just can’t handle and questions that are very inappropriate and they shouldn’t ask a combat veteran and when that happens, I have a tendency to have a panic attack.”
Panic attacks are horrible, I completely lose control and it's not safe for me and it's not safe for other people - Dan Sperry
Questions like what’s wrong with you and what happened in the Gulf would lead to what Dan calls "freaking out."
“Panic attacks are horrible, I completely lose control and it’s not safe for me and it’s not safe for other people,” says Dan.
Dan says he can’t see and he doesn’t remember where he is or what he’s doing. That’s when his combat training takes over. “I got in so many fights when I first got out that and somebody always had to stop me and one day I realized sometime there’s not going to be somebody there to stop me and I’m going to kill somebody and that’s the last thing that I wanted to do.”
Dan turned to the Veterans Administration for help. He started to get counseling and learned he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs reports as many as 10 percent of Desert Storm veterans suffer from P.T.S.D. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, angry outbursts, depression, and anxiety, symptoms that Dan battles every day. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, that’s the last thing, I mean I was a combat veteran, I would have given my life for anybody in the United States.”
Dan also has horrible headaches, often triggered by the adrenaline that comes with stress or fear. He loses his balance, he has to walk with a cane. When a headache hits, he can’t see, can’t focus, can’t even stand up. He’s constantly in the emergency room.
To wake up...from hearing someone scream for you that you know is helpless and in pain, is horrible - Angie Sperry
“About a month and a half ago, I fell down, back into our shower and hit my head and got a concussion,” says Dan, “and my wife was in the other room and I couldn’t make enough noise for her to hear me and I laid there for probably close to 45 minutes.”
Angie adds, “He had to lay there and holler long and loud enough for me to wake up clear in the other room and hear him and get up and help him to wake up…from hearing someone scream for you that you know is helpless and in pain, is horrible and…to see him on the tile floor, Dan is a huge man, he’s incredibly powerful, but to be that helpless is heartbreaking.”
Angie and Dan had reached their breaking point. Then one day Dan saw a story on TV about a veteran with P.T.S.D. who had a service dog. Dan got excited. Could a trained dog help him with his symptoms?
Our series, Service Dog, continues tomorrow during Morning Edition on KBSX 91.5. You’ll meet Awescar, a labradoodle trained to help Dan Sperry cope with P.T.S.D.
Service Dog: How A Labradoodle Is Helping One Idaho Veteran Cope With PTSD
Awescar is normally an obedient dog.
“It’s okay buddy, okay, I guess you’re going to sit up here. What is it?” asks Dan Sperry.
This 70 pound white labradoodle is supposed to sit on the floor until Dan says it’s okay to jump up into his lap. But today Awescar won’t leave Dan alone. “You’re a good boy! He definitely wants to come and lay down on your lap.”
Awescar is trained to notice when Dan is upset or nervous and provide comfort. Dan is nervous today, but not as much as the last time we talked. He’s more centered and able to sit still for longer periods. That’s largely because of Awescar. “I didn’t know how much my life was going to change.”
Dan is one of the more than 5 million adults that suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D., every year. This Desert Storm veteran came home from the war with panic attacks, anxiety, and flashbacks.
Before Awescar, Dan never left the house. He couldn’t deal with crowds, and he was afraid he might hurt someone during a panic attack. Now, that’s changing. “I have no reservations about leaving the house or going into a store or something," says Dan. "I don’t lock myself in the house day after day after day anymore which is pretty nice, it’s nice to wake up and there he is, you know.”
I don't lock myself in the house day after day after day anymore - Dan Sperry
Awescar was trained for several months at Companion Training, a facility in the Treasure Valley that provides service dogs for a variety of disabilities. The cost of each dog varies depending on what it learns to do and can run into the thousands of dollars. Through Companion Training, the Sperry’s did get some financial help to pay for their dog.
Awescar knows the basic like sit, stay and heel. “He also knows how to go to a drawer or a covered door and open it up and get a bottle of pills out and close the door and take it to Dan,” says Dan's wife Angie.
Awescar is also trained to prevent Dan from falling. He suffers from debilitating headaches. He can’t balance and he walks with a cane. Angie says Awescar will stand still on all fours so Dan can use him as a brace. “A few days after we got him we were walking him and practicing that command and Dan had a really bad headache where he needed him to do that and needed him to brace him and he just performed flawlessly,” Angie recalls.
And when Dan falls, Awescar is learning what to do. “We’re teaching him how to if Dan falls to immediately go find me or he can say 'go get Angie' and Awescar will search the house for me and find me.”
Awescar also helps Dan navigate crowds. He gets nervous when people are behind him, so Awescar follows to create a barrier. This came in handy when Dan and Angie went to the popular Basque Festival in downtown Boise.
“To see Dan so completely comfortable in an environment that would have been horrifically horrible for him before was amazing, and still is,” says Angie as Dan chimes in, “that’s not something that I would ever do, too many people, too many opportunities for something to go south, mind would race, wouldn’t have a good time, but I just walked through there, we weren’t there for very long, but I had a great time. Haven’t gone out and done something like that in years.”
Awescar will continue to learn commands to adapt to Dan’s needs. He can legally go wherever Dan goes. And Awescar is all business when on the leash. But at home, when he’s not on the job, Awescar and Dan roughhouse and play catch. “Bring it here, Awescar, bring it here.”
Dan says Awescar gives him a reason to get up in the morning. “I can’t hardly remember life without him," Dan says. "You try to block the bad things in your life out or not focus on them and he really helps me do that, so I’ve taken that other part of my life and tried to put it away and start a new life with him.”
“C’mon buddy,” Dan says to Awescar.
Dan Sperry and Awescar have a new life and a new mission - one that involves helping other military veterans with P.T.S.D. Our story continues tomorrowon Morning Edition, on KBSX 91.5 fm.
Service Dog: An Idaho Army Veteran Works To Help Others Find Therapy Dogs
In the three years since Dan got Awescar, a lot has changed. “So now I have a life,” says Dan.
Dan sits comfortably in his living room as we talk. He no longer fidgets, he’s more relaxed and confident. His service dog sprawls out on the floor next to the kitchen table. “It’s amazing what a white dog can do.”
This large labradoodle helps Dan cope with post traumatic stress disorder or P.T.S.D. Before Awescar, Dan was isolated, rarely leaving the house. Now he’s going out every day, to take Awescar for a swim in a nearby creek. Sometimes the two of them go up to the gas station so Dan can get a soda. When people ask to pet Awescar, Dan isn’t afraid or nervous, instead he strikes up a conversation, happy to talk about his dog. “It’s nice to be part of society again.”
While Dan has been learning to live a life outside the military, Awescar has been learning too. His training never stops and Dan and his wife Angie work with him every day.
The last time we talked, they were teaching Awescar the Lassie Command. Remember the TV show Lassie where they sent the dog to go find Timmy? Dan tells Awescar to go touch Angie. “When Dan sends him looking for me,” says Angie, “he will race around the house and sniff and listen until he finds me and he will come up and bump me with his nose.”
Dan still has his bad days. After his tour in Desert Storm, Dan came home with ferocious headaches that cause him to fall down. He often ends up with concussions. Dan’s P.T.S.D. still triggers flashbacks, panic attacks, and anxiety. “It’s been 21 years since I was in the service, but when I close my eyes at night, I can be right there.”
Dan doesn’t like to talk about his time in an artillery unit in the Persian Gulf war. “People have no idea the steps that a soldier has to take to be able to flip that safety off on the M16 and pull that trigger. That’s something every soldier has to make personally, inside, and as soon as you do that, you’re never the same again, ever, there’s no going back.”
But Dan says he would go back to the military. He misses his buddies, the camaraderie, being part of a society where everybody understands each other and he fit in. “The call to serve never goes away, it does for some guys but, for the guys that doesn’t it’s hard, it’s hard to be out here. I got to a point where I loved the military more than I loved my wife and I realized I needed to make a choice and I chose her but there still isn’t a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t regret not staying in the military.”
Angie says in the Army, everything Dan did was to help and protect his fellow soldiers. She says he needs a higher purpose to focus on. “Every soldier needs a mission, regardless of if they are still in the military or if they’re not, that’s so ingrained in them.”
So Dan has become a sort of service dog ambassador. Now that he has Awescar, he’s spreading the word about how trained dogs can help soldiers in need. “I told myself I wasn’t going to squander this gift. I’m not going to rest until every veteran that needs a service dog gets a service dog.”
He speaks to large groups, telling Awescar’s story, and he encourages people to donate their time or money to soldiers who need service dogs. And he tells his story about what he goes through every day. “That’s my mission now, to bring awareness about P.T.S.D. that it is a very, very serious and can be very debilitating condition.”
Since Dan got Awescar, he’s run into a few stores that refused service because he was with a dog. He’s tried to educate them that service dogs are allowed anywhere he goes. Dan hopes that education will spread and help the next veteran with a service dog that tries to enter.
Dan Sperry calmly stands up from his kitchen table, and starts wrestling with Awescar. “What do you think buddy? What do you think with that crazy tail? Where did you get that crazy tail, huh? That’s a crazy tail.”
Angie watches the two of them play, aware of the difference Awescar has made in their lives. “It feels so good to have someone I love so much, get his life back.”
Copyright 2013 Boise State Public Radio
