His lucky Clover: Service dog helps Canadian Forces vet cope with his PTSD

Jody Salway is never alone anymore.

Everywhere the Canadian Armed Forces veteran goes, so doesClover, an English mastiff service dog, whohe's nearly finished training.

"She's a walking billboard. Everybody's like, 'Wow, you look perfectly healthy, what'sgoing on? Why do you have a dog in here,'" he told CBC-Radio's Afternoon Edition on Thursday.

Salwayhas Clover in order to help him cope with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which resulted from a friendly fire incident while serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan back in 2006.

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He sustained injuriesto his neck, back and brain.

"Years go down the road, I start noticing that I'm not the same person anymore."

He suffered from mood swings, felt a high level of anxiety and enjoyed things less than he used to. He was also withdrawn and avoided going out in public.Eventually, he was diagnosedwith PTSD.

"It's almost like I was the last person to recognize it. I think my wife saw it, my kids saw it and finally it was at the boiling point where it's like, 'We need to deal with this.'

"Being a soldier you have this warrior mentality where you're kind of bulletproof and you can do anything and it'd been completely stripped from me."

Identifying triggers

He said there's a misconception that service dogs only assist people with visual or hearing impairments when in fact they are increasinglybeing trained to help with conditions like Autism, PTSD, seizures even to help detectcancer.

In Salway's case, Clover helps him mitigate triggers that lead to feeling anxious.

For example, he said he suffers from nightmares and Clover wakes him up.

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"She'll come and put her face on my face or she'll put both of her paws up on my arm. She's even gently bit down on my fingers once or twice."

He explained that it is Cover'sjob to identify when he feels stressed, which has helped Salwaybecome more self-aware of his own emotions.

At first, he wasn't sure what Clover was doing when she would attempt to get his attention in certain situations, like while in a crowd of people.

"There are times where the leash will just go tight and she goes, 'You know what, you're not willing to do it for yourself, I'm going to do it for you and out we go,'" he explained.

Working dogs

Salway received Clover from Alpha K9 Canada in Lethbridge, Alta., where she received some initial training. The rest of her training essentially involves making a catalogue of his emotions, which is done through identifying the scent of him while, happy, anxious and in other emotional states.

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Service dogs demand a high standard of training at all times,he said.

That means one of thetoughest parts isto firmly sticktoClover's training regime without giving into her puppy-dog eyes.

He said that being slack even for a week can set her back two weeks.

Clover the service dog

7 years ago

Duration 3:38

Canadian Forces veteran Jody Salway is in the midst of training his own PTSD service dog named Clover.

Don't pet

Another challenge is dealing with people who may not be aware Clover is a service dogand attempt to pet her.

"I think the hardest part is explaining it to little kids. Little kids don't always get it, they just see a puppy," said Salway.

"It's really tough on them. Surprisingly, there's a lot of adults too that will ignore the vest and just come in and pet without asking."

He wants people to understand that service dogs are working all the time, even when they may not look like it.

Petting a service dog, making eye contact or speaking to one will distract the animal from its important task at hand.

To paint a picture of what that may feel like for an animal,Salwayexplained it might feel like someone sticking a finger in a person's ear while they are concentrating on a math test.

"If you cannot make eye contact or speak to the dog, you're doing the handler a great service because this way the dog's got 100-per-cent attention on the handler and nothing else."