Service Dogs Help Warriors

But when the couple’s infant son died shortly after birth, Navarro and his wife struggled to cope with the loss. He suggested they try counseling, and so found himself in a VA Hospital waiting room, thumbing through a brochure left on a nearby table that he had no intention of actually reading.

The trick was to “look busy.” If he looked busy, then that would signal to other people to not engage, to not start a conversation, to leave him alone. Navarro used the trick frequently, in any waiting room, line or situation where he was around other people and otherwise unoccupied.

The comment from his social worker, at the end of his session, therefore caught him off guard. “Maybe a service dog would help.”

When he asked about the comment, the social worker pointed out he had been paging through the brochure on service dogs while waiting for the appointment. Navarro said he and his wife had talked about getting a dog during the pregnancy. He didn’t believe his random choice of reading material was a coincidence.

He went online and started learning more about Service Peace Warriors, a nonprofit organization based in Eltopia, a community about 15 miles north of Pasco, that connects honorably discharged military personnel coping with PTSD in Washington state with certified service dogs, free of charge.

Service Peace Warriors is how Ranger, a German shepherd/shar-pei mix, joined the Navarros’ lives. Navarro said there were days before Ranger when he didn’t want to get out of bed. Now, Navarro knows he has to get up, feed Ranger and take him for a walk. Ranger accompanies him “practically everywhere,” he said.

“The military teaches you how to be a service member, but they don’t teach you how to be a civilian again,” Navarro said. “(With Ranger) I’ve learned to get out a little bit more, to accept that he’ll tell me if we need to go. He’s not a pet. He’s a working dog, and he’s family.”