Joni Bonilla is in the process of helping 20 veterans with PTSD train their own dogs or rescues to become service dogs through her organization, Operation At Ease. But before May, she didn't have a permanent place to train them. Last fall, 17-year-old Rosemarie Davidson asked Bonilla if she could raise $20,000 for the organization as part of a project at the Emma Willard School. See the full story...
You can never tell what a dog’s been through in its life, and when you look at their humans, a glance can’t reveal their pasts, either. But one dog-training class is starting to make the invisible seen. “I tell them in my opinion this is the bravest thing they’ve ever done in their whole life," said obedience trainer Joni Bonilla. Bonilla is the founder of Operation At Ease. She finds rescue dogs and teaches veterans with PTSD to train them as service dogs to remove the barriers of high costs and waiting lists. Read More...
From the battlefield to the backyard, Matt Catlin and Casey Harris have been through a lot together. “I am very lucky because I am getting to go through this program with my best friend from Iraq,” said Catlin. Catlin and Harris served side by side overseas and returned together in 2007. “I was kind of looking to get a dog,” said Harris. “There was an existing program that was placing animals with veterans,” said Catlin.
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September 2021
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