Elias Weiss Friedman

natural disaster.

And so this was at a hospital where they are going to visit nurses who are experiencing something traumatic 10 times a day, because they're in an emergency room.

And there's just this unique ability for them to interact with a dog.

And the dog doesn't have to ask you a question of like, how are you doing?

Just being in their presence

and they have an ability to listen and sense the way you're feeling and whether it's eye contact touch warmth letting you connect with them there's just something that it has a powerful way of making you feel better and de-escalating and relieving stress they're the best listeners and even though they don't speak to you they know exactly what to say

And there's also a stigma around mental health.

Not everyone's going to raise their hand and say, I need help.

So with a dog, you don't have to raise your hand.

They just show up for you.

And whether you are aware of the fact that you are feeling down or feeling like the trauma is having a grip on you, you

you feel the dog just make you feel better and yeah it's a unique thing that's something that i think about a lot there's this i met with a veteran a couple years ago it was in marine corps and he was talking about how his dog he said he wouldn't be around here for wouldn't be around if it weren't for his dog and i had heard that before i wasn't sure if what he really meant and he was talking about how

how many more veterans commit suicide every day and how many more of them would still be around if they'd had dogs and that's like a statistic that's theoretical that i remember leaving towards the end of my time that day speaking with his wife and just asking her like has he ever talked to you about any of his experiences serving and she said no he's never talked to me about anything i did nothing about his experience

And that just shows you that his dog was there for him and his dog listens.

His dog is the one that hears his stories and saved his life, literally, because dogs can be there in ways that people can't.

Even if you want them to be, he felt like he didn't want to burden his wife with things that he suffers with.

And so how do you quantify that?

Yeah.

Yeah, and a lot of veterans think that they don't deserve one or someone else deserves it more than them.

That's just built into the mentality of serving and being an officer.