After we finished Bella's photograph's in St. Augustine, we stayed and met Ryan at the
Light House with his service dog Spirit.
We walked across to the yacht club where we found a perfect location for
Spirits photographs. Afterwards we went to Aunt Kate's - a casual restaurant in St. Augustine and sat
on their deck overlooking the water as we had lunch and got to know Ryan. Ryan
was very special to us because he was from Minnesota- specifically Winona.
Ryan went into the
Navy in August 2002 and has been serving a little over 10 years. From June 2010 to July 2011 he was stationed
at Guantanamo Bay- a total of 13 months.
The military today does not allow anyone to serve over six months at a
time there because it is extremely taxing mentally. Unfortunately for Ryan that
restriction wasn't in place during his service.
Ryan is active still serving in Jacksonville. Like John
(Daisy's owner) he became isolated
finding few peers in his Naval ranks that understood his symptoms.
Because of the nature of his symptoms he just stayed home after getting through
each work day. He told us he became an expert at ordering everything he needed
online so he could avoid going out. He also told us that even when he was able
to get back home on leave that he didn't feel "safe" at family gatherings-showing
just how bad his anxiety levels were.
Luckily he was able to start with a volunteer program at
K9sForWarriors and discovered how therapeutic it was just being around the
dogs. Noticing this, Shari Duval was able to find him a spot in their schedule of
veterans so that could begin training with his own service dog. Spirit, a wonderful Black Lab was not
originally chosen for him, but ended up being the perfect dog. Meg Kuchar,
mother of PGA golfer Matt Kuchar helped raise the puppy and kept in close contact
with Ryan during and after his training with Spirit. She took great pride in the role in providing
this service dog for Ryan. Here is a picture of her with Spirit as a puppy and
Spirit (below) as a puppy training with other dogs at the wharf.
Ryan told us that the first 2 weeks of training got him out
more into the public than he had the past several years. After trying everything to manage these
terrible symptoms of PTSD from counseling to biofeedback, finally Spirit was
the answer to get him back into life. Ryan
is doing well now- in fact he and Kevin (Bella's owner) who trained in the same
class at K9's decided to go to a concert together and were successful. He
thought his concert days were over. This picture below is of Ryan and Shari Duval.
Soon his time serving with the Navy will be over. Because of his personal experience and the
radical improvements in his own situation,
he wants to assist other Veterans get their own service dogs. And best of all, he wants to come back to Minnesota after he receives the training
that will allow him to change the lives of others. We were thrilled with this
news, aware that MN has over 14,000 Veterans with full blown PTSD- some, of
course, that would benefit from the help of a service dog.
We look forward to continuing this story with Ryan and hope
to work together to find a way to bring more service dogs to veterans. Ryan is someone very special and we are confident he will
succeed with his dream to help his fellow Veterans. Thank you Ryan!!!
