Brain Injury Blog

Isaiah Schaffer joined the Marines at 17, eager to fight for his country. After three tours in Iraq, he is back home in Spotsylvania struggling with the physical and psychic wounds of the war. This is the second of a two-part series about Schaffer and his efforts to recapture a normal life.

A dog is God’s way of proving He doesn’t want us to walk alone. From the journal kept by Annette, a puppy raiser with Puppies Behind Bars by Laura L. Hutchison

Salvation padded into Isaiah Schaffer’s life on four paws. Fifteen months ago, the 25-year-old Spotsylvania County man was essentially a shut-in. Having returned from three tours in Iraq with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury, he was prone to flashbacks and nightmares. He rarely left his one-bedroom apartment, “I would drop money out the window to have my friends go get me food,” he said. “I would get nervous in different situations–a crying baby, lines, someone approaching me from behind, crowds. I couldn’t watch behind me. If there was a loud noise, I’d fall to the floor.

“I was in the apartment for a very, very long time. I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something.” Schaffer’s mother had seen a Katie Couric story about Puppies Behind Bars, a nonprofit organization that uses prison inmates to train service dogs. In 2006, the organization started Dog Tags to train dogs for wounded warriors, especially those with PTSD and traumatic brain injury. “I sent in an application and wrote a letter. I basically said, ‘This is how I was before the war. This is how I am now.” His mother wrote a similar letter. Schaffer heard about a week later that he’d been chosen from among applicants all over the country to receive a dog.

Three months later, the organization flew him and his mother to Florida to begin a two-week training process. The trip, the dog and the training were all free. He was paired with a chocolate English Labrador named Meghan, trained by a New York prison inmate named Annette. “Both her parents were champions,” Schaffer said of Meghan. “I guess she couldn’t be because she’s pigeon-toed in front. I think it’s cute.”

All the Dog Tags dogs can open and close doors, turn lights on and off, dial 911, carry shopping bags, do the laundry, and bring items to a person. They are trained to find the handler’s car in a crowded parking lot, to look both ways before the handler enters a room, to “watch my back,” and to stop people from approaching if they are making the handler nervous.

The training was intense–early mornings, late nights, field trips to test dog and handler in public situations. “She had been trained, but she needed to learn me and I needed to learn her,” Schaffer said. “It was frustrating, at times, for both of us.” But Schaffer and Meghan graduated, and she flew home with him to Spotsylvania.

ON THE JOB

Meghan is a typical dog when she’s at home. She eats sleeps and plays. “This is her doghouse,” Schaffer said. “She’s a good foot warmer,” he added as Meghan settled across his feet on a cool November morning. “I haven’t been out of sandals since July.” But when it’s time to work, her demeanor changes. She lowers her head when Schaffer reaches out to put her blue vest on her. It has a patch that says “Combat Veteran Iraq.”

A bone-shaped patch introduces the dog as Meghan. Another patch, which Schaffer helped design, says “PTSD” and “Proudly Served” around the silhouette of a man saluting, and the words “not all wounds are visible.” She wears a desert camouflage collar and walks on a military-green leash. But even when she’s decked out and working, Meghan’s duties aren’t immediately obvious. “People are used to seeing-eye dogs,” Schaffer said. “People look at her and it might look like she’s not doing a damned thing.”

In a grocery store recently, Schaffer kept the stocked shelves on his right, Meghan tight against his left calf. When people came toward him, she veered away from his leg, forcing them to pass at a greater distance. When he stopped at the freezers and commanded, “Meghan, get my back,” she sat close to him but facing in the opposite direction, ready to alert him if someone approached from behind.

“Sometimes I’ll tell her to heel and she ignores me,” Schaffer said. “She steps in front of me because she noticed someone getting too close to my personal bubble. When they’re out, Meghan’s head is constantly moving, scanning from side to side, her ears perked up to detect any strange sounds. Schaffer says Meghan “sashays” when she’s working, happily swaying her hips. He told her “Take,” and she gently grasped a loaf of bread in her jaws. “Hold it,” he commanded. “Let’s go.” Meghan carried the bread to the checkout, where she placed it on the counter.

“It might have a couple teeth marks in it,” Schaffer remarked. “Oh well, it’s the heel anyway.”People glanced, smiled, and occasionally greeted the pair. A woman walked by, looked at Meghan and said, “What a cutie.” As they were leaving, Schaffer tied a plastic shopping bag in a knot and gave it to Meghan to carry. She wagged her tail.

OUT IN PUBLIC

Meghan accompanies Schaffer everywhere, and is permitted in all public places by law. She has been to work with him and attended classes at Germanna Community College. She goes to restaurants and department stores. Going into public places is still stressful for Schaffer, but having Meghan by his side gives him the confidence to do it.

“I can actually go out and walk into a store without looking at everyone’s hands to see if they’re going to shoot me,” he said. “I don’t have to focus on everything going on around me, because Meghan’s doing that. I can just go in and get what I need.” At least, that’s usually the case. Sometimes employees or other patrons in stores make things difficult. They’ll tell him he doesn’t look like he has a disability, or tell him that if Meghan isn’t a seeing-eye dog she can’t be in a store. Some places have even thrown them out. “I want to educate people,” Schaffer said. “This is not 1950. There aren’t just seeing-eye dogs.”

The largest patch on Meghan’s vest is shaped like a stop sign. It reads: “SERVICE DOG. PTSD. DO NOT TOUCH.” It’s the third patch Schaffer has used in an effort to keep people from touching his dog while she’s working. While Meghan has been trained not to respond aggressively, attention from anyone other than Schaffer distracts her from her job of keeping him safe. “Not one person reads the patch,” Schaffer said.

Puppies Behind Bars supplies cards that inform people that Meghan’s handler is an Iraq or Afghanistan war veteran, and that she helps him with everyday activities. It also lists a phone number for more information. “My favorite thing to hear is a kid and a mom in a store, where the mom educates the kid and explains that it’s a working dog and shouldn’t be touched,” Schaffer said. “That’s amazing to me, instead of having someone say, ‘That dog can’t be here.’ “When I leave the house, I know I’m going to have to deal with things that make me uncomfortable. But then to have to deal with people’s ignorance, it gets pretty annoying.” Schaffer is re-tested annually to make sure he and Meghan work well together in a variety of public situations. They passed this year’s public access test earlier this month.

YOU GOT THIS

Schaffer is a new father, and at first the sounds of his own daughter crying caused flashbacks. He had been in a battle where a baby was left in the street and no one could get to it because of the intense firefight. One night as he went to soothe his daughter, Athenry, he found that he needed soothing, too. “I looked down at Meghan for an instant, and it was like she read my mind,” he said. “And just with a wag of her tail and a look, I felt she was telling me: ‘You got this. You’re fine.’ I scooped up my daughter and sang her to sleep.” If Meghan senses Schaffer getting nervous, she will rub up against his legs. “If the situation is bad enough, I’ll sit down and she’ll get in my lap and lick my face,” Schaffer said. “She stays as long as I need her to be there.” When Schaffer is driving, Meghan rides on the floorboard by the passenger seat.

“I had a scare recently: I was driving and there was a tire on the side of the road,” said Schaffer, who was exposed to more than half a dozen blasts in Iraq. “One of the roadside bombings I was in was a tire just sitting in the road, loaded with explosives. I got really tense. I dodged the tire, and without me having to say a word, Meghan got up in the seat and started licking my face until I was OK. “She knows 86 commands, but a lot of times I don’t even have to speak. She just knows.”

Source: fredericksburg.com – 25 January 2010