Marine veteran Mike Drafts had worked at a nonprofit called K9s for Warriors for five years when a thought struck him: why was he not tapping into the services his own employer offered to people like him?
As the director of warrior training and education at K9s for Warriors, Drafts had assisted in the pairings of hundreds of service members affected by PTSD, TBIs and military-related sexual trauma with highly-trained service dogs. He witnessed firsthand the difference that the dogs, approximately 60% of which come from shelters, made in veterans’ lives.
So why not him? Drafts certainly was struggling with PTSD, and the only effect his many medications were having was making him feel completely numb.
“One of the things that people with PTSD do is self-sabotage, like ‘I don’t deserve this,’” said Drafts, a former tow gunner. “I think you have to get to a certain point in your healing to accept unconditional love.”
Finally, Drafts knew he was ready. K9s for Warriors eventually paired him with Garet, a two-year-old Labrador Retriever who helps with emotional regulation and physiological awareness. He calls her Little G (“That’s her street name, because she’s a little good, a little girl, a little gangster”) and jokes that she needs her own service animal after spending a day with him.
“We link up so well that she probably knows me better than me,” Drafts said. “We’ll lay in bed together and her breathing pattern will match mine.”
It’s stories like that that keep the team persevering at K9s for Warriors, which was founded in 2011 by the mother of a police bomb dog handler who served in Iraq. So far, they have provided more than 1,000 dogs to clients, whom they call warriors, and usually raise about $25 million a year to cover costs at facilities in Florida and Texas. Since their founding, K9s for Warriors has rescued almost 2,000 dogs from shelters, leading to their motto, “Saving lives at both ends of the leash.”
“Last July, we had a family drive down to see their husband and dad graduate from the three-week program,” said Steven Carmichael, K9s for Warrior’s development manager of corporate partners. “I asked his wife, ‘Have you noticed a difference in him yet?’ And she said, ‘I noticed the first Thursday he was here, because the man I married called me that night instead of the man I’ve been living with.’”
Carmichael, the grandson of a WWII veteran, compares the veterans before and after they get their dogs as metaphorically arriving in stiff, starched shirts and leaving in breezy Hawaiian tops instead.
“It’s the most rewarding thing,” he said. “I get to walk into work every day and see how donations from partners like Navy Federal Credit Union are changing lives.”
Navy Federal is in their second year of partnering with K9s for Warriors, in fact. Last year, the credit union donated $10,000, while this year, the nonprofit will be the nonprofit beneficiary of its annual Navy Federal Credit Union 5K happening virtually on Sept. 14. Their employees have also upcycled more than 5,000 old T-shirts into braided tug toys for the dogs in training (some of whom will be career-changed and adopted out as normal family dogs).
“This is a partnership that hits on time and treasure for us,” said Brandi Gomez, a Marine Reserve wife and Navy Federal’s manager of corporate social responsibility. “This is, by far, a huge crowd-pleaser among our employees.”
Drafts is simply grateful for a return to happiness.
“Garet will start doing something so crazy to get my attention, and I’m like, ‘Why won’t you sit down?’” he said. “And then I’ll notice that my leg had been shaking. She already knew that I needed her.”
Visit K9s for Warriors to learn about applying for a service dog or adopting a dog. To participate in Navy Federal’s virtual 5K, click here.
