Jill Macdonald embraces Mac and her Chihuahua, Haley, together for the first time. When Macdonald experiences PTSD-related stress, Mac will be able to sense the changes in her feelings, and he will instinctively know to comfort her. According to Operation Wolfhound’s Alicia Miller, about 85 percent of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder will respond to a psychiatric service dog.
We’ve all heard heartwarming pet-adoption stories, in which it seems like fate has a lot more to do with the pairing than happenstance.
However, the story of Jill Macdonald and a greyhound named Mac makes the word “fate” seem like an understatement.
Jill Macdonald, an Army veteran, was diagnosed with PTSD in the late 1990s. When Macdonald visited a Veteran Affairs psychiatrist in 1998 for issues related to a wrist injury, she also described extreme cases of road rage, and violent, erratic behavior. The VA psychiatrist linked this behavior to a sexual assault that Macdonald experienced at her graduation from the Army’s combat-medic school in 1983.
“Most vets have PTSD from bombs going off,” Macdonald said. “I was sexually assaulted by three combat medics in the barracks, and that’s why I have it.”
Macdonald was diagnosed with a form of PTSD known as MST—military sexual trauma.
“Because I knew who they were, and because they were medics is the reason I am so hyper-vigilant today,” Macdonald said. “I want to bring it to light, because I know there are more women out there who are afraid to bring up that they were sexually assaulted in the United States Army by one of their own.”
Macdonald’s PTSD makes it challenging for her to deal with stress. She has been on medication, and has been sleeping with a gun at night.
“I get mean, and I don’t like being like that,” she said. “But that’s what the PTSD does to me. On an anger scale of 1 to 10, it makes me go (to) 7 to 10 automatically, where a normal person is only at a 1 or a 2.”
Arizona Greyhound Rescue works with volunteers to find homes for greyhounds that raced at Tucson Greyhound Park. At the Arizona Animal Fair last year, Jean Williams, the vice president of AGR, met Alicia Miller; her husband, Robert Miller; and their daughter, Rhiannon Miller, who are co-founders of Operation Wolfhound, a nonprofit that trains dogs to become service pets for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Williams had been struggling to find a home for Mac, an AGR dog diagnosed with separation-anxiety disorder. Mac was bouncing around from foster home to foster home, destroying furniture and, in one case, a laptop.
The Millers say that veterans with PTSD and dogs with separation anxiety make perfect pairings: The dogs need owners who will never leave them alone, and the veterans can use the dogs as calming extra sets of eyes.
In other words, Macdonald and Mac have the potential to become a perfect pair, and as a result, Mac became the first greyhound from Arizona Greyhound Rescue to go through the Operation Wolfhound training.
Macdonald began that six-month training process with Mac. Macdonald, Williams and the Millers met weekly at malls, parks and restaurants while Mac trains to become a psychiatric service dog for Macdonald.
However, that process has proven to be rather challenging.
An as-yet-unresolved conflict at Macdonald’s workplace caused a delay in Mac going home with her. According to the Americans With Disabilities Act, when a person with a service animal enters a business, “The service animal must be permitted to accompany the individual with a disability to all areas of the facility where customers are normally allowed to go. An individual with a service animal may not be segregated from other customers.”
Macdonald works as a massage therapist at a local salon, and Macdonald’s boss wouldn’t allow her to bring Mac to work. As of this writing, that conflict remains unresolved.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2012.
Mac has a prong choke chain collar around his neck, using it is a cruel and inhumane method of dog training. Shame on them.
While I certainly support the use of service dogs for those with physical or psychiatric disabilities and find sexual assault in the military to be a horrible problem, which the military in still too lax in dealing with, I have to question the use of a pinch collar( a negative training method) on a greyhound.
Anyone who has worked a great deal with greyhounds know these dogs are very sensitive to negative reinforcement. Why are Operation Wolfhound and Arizona Greyhound Rescue supportive of this negative training tool? Is it perhaps a shortcut to positive training? All hounds can be strong-willed (often a reason for using a pinch collar). If the dog is that strong-willed to need this type of negative reinforcement perhaps it is not the right dog for the training. I lived with a trained service greyhound, one of only 2 in Tucson at the time when he was certified in 2008. He was trained only with positive techniques and performed his job very willingly and without any pain.
My personal belief is that greyhounds and other sighthounds are not the ideal dog for service training, while many do extremely well as therapy dogs and make fantastic companion animals. They typically do not have the long stamina of other breeds and have very thin skin that seems could be harmed by a pinch collar. It would seem the use of the traditional Martingale collar and lead or a humane harness might be better. Could it be that prong collars are a substitute for good training?
PitBulls.org mentions these things: Pressure applied with any collar can lead to neck, back, trachea, and esophagus problems. And as this study shows, a dog’s eyes are particularly susceptible. The risk is increased with prong and choke collars. Parts of a dog’s optical nerves travel down the neck, and so constant pressure applied there can directly damage nerves, potentially leading to blindness.
But that’s not all. There are unintended behavior consequences with using prong collars as well. Increased aggression and anxiety has been observed. Whatever a dog is looking at or going after when they are “popped”, its possible the dog will make a negative association with that object.
Another site states that “The pinch collar can be a useful tool for a handler who is working with a large, dominant breed of dog”. Greyhounds certainly don’t fit this profile.
The Humane Society of the United States says “More humane collars and good obedience training should make it unnecessary to resort to this aversive collar”.
There are many other ways to deal with separation anxiety in dogs than putting them in a program that uses prong collars for negative reinforcement. I find it sad that Arizona Greyhound Rescue chose to put Mac in a program with negative training tools. I hope he didn’t have to experience other negative training methods as well.
Mary Freeman
Past President, Arizona Greyhound Rescue
And long-time greyhound adopter
Thanks for pointing out the choke collar. I hate seeing those things!
Sexual assault of our military women is rampant..last year alone there were over 3,000 assaults. Just as in the cover up with the Catholic Church, there is a cover up taking place with this. First now is truth starting to be known.
In looking at the photos of Mac, the greyhound, the very first photo is the beautiful dog with a “pinch collar” around his throat. Just a pinch! Can you imagine! I spent a year and a half in training with greyhound Buddy with just his martingale collar…and the first thing we were taught is “loose leash”…no jerking to correct. Maybe Operation Wolfhound should get with the times, especially with greyhounds, they respond to positive training. There were six dogs in Buddy’s class, one of them a Rottweiler and he wore a regular collar. When have you ever seen a therapy or assistance dog wearing a metal pinch collar. Like never!!! These trainers might want to contact Handi-Dogs and ask them about positive methods of training versus a pinch collars. Jill might want to look into the training her dog is getting…as she has suffered abuse the gentle greyhound with a pinch collar that acts as a bite on the neck is also abuse. This is not necessary.
Jill would not be having a problem with either her work place or her landlord if this was a certified licensed assistance dog…then it would fall under the Disability Act. Apparently the trainers have not prepared the dog for certification.
I would hope now that Arizona Greyhound Rescue has seen these photos, they will take time to educate Operation Wolfhound on the characteristics of the Greyhound Breed. Very sad indeed.
Diana Hansen, Greyhound adopter
owner of a certified assistance dog
A great article, A great success for one of America’s defenders – we wish her well! Sounds like we need to focus more attention on our wounded veteran’s than on picking apart the minutia of a training program. Let’s not lose focus on the ultimate goal here of supporting those that serve our country. I support our Veteran’s and this pairing a dog with a Vet is a great initiative. Keep it up!
No one is discounting the important work and success of pairing wounded vets with service dogs, but it doesn’t have to be done in a negative way. The anti-negative training comments are to get trainers and groups putting dogs in training, in this case, Operation Wolfhound and AGR to look at the methods they are using. Introducing more negativity into a situation where there is already a lot of negativity, helps how? Positive training methods can only work to create a win-win for everyone. I doubt many of us would like to be poked or jabbed each time we didn’t behave the way someone else wanted. We who have spent years and given our hearts and souls to the betterment of retired racing greyhound lives are only asking is that the way we want greyhounds to be treated or trained?
I fostered Mac for several months. He is perfect for a service dog as he does need someone around 24/7, but the use of the pinch collar is simply cruel. Mac is a loving and caring dog and all he wants is to please his “human”. I believe that this partnership is a good think, but that he could easily be trained with a martingale collar.
Dawn Heinemann
Greyhound Adopter and Volunteer
Former foster mom of Mac
This is Alicia Miller of Operation Wolfhound. For those who wrote us directly asking why Mac had a prong collar before assuming we normally use such devices or that we were not trained in their use thank you for taking the time to discover the facts before voicing your opinion.
Mac is the only time Operation Wolfhound has used a prong collar and for a very specific reason. Both Mac’s foster and Jill have physical issues with their arms and wrists. Jill is going to be having surgery soon on her wrist and Mac’s foster has arms that have already been operated on. Because of this neither person can physically pull on the leash to a degree that Mac notices with a slip collar. When Mac was working with trainers without physical disabilities in their arms, he worked well on a slip collar but when he was working with people with disabled arms, he just didn’t notice the cues. The prong collar is only there so Mac notices the leash cues from people with physical challenges.
Prong collars are cruel when misused, but then so are slip collars. Slip collars when yanked on or even with a dog just constantly leaning into it can cause long term damage to a dog’s neck musculature. The key is not in the training aid, but in its proper use. When people have physical challenges that make them have a very light hand on the leash it is a useful tool to let the dog at least feel the light cues and prevent potentially crippling damage to the disabled persons arm and wrist caused if a dog gets distracted.
I would also like to point out that even if someone has rescued animals for years, that does not make them a qualified dog trainer or behaviorist. Operation Wolfhound has people with decades of experience in training and rehabilitating dogs. We do not use cruel methods, in fact our entire training program is based on Play Training which is all positive reenforcement. A dog fearful of pain, especially a sighthound will not be a good service dog. These dogs work because of the rewards of love and petting a constantly attentive partner showers on them.
Also to correct a false statement in an earlier post; Service Dogs are prescribed by a therapist and can be registered with many agencies but they are not ‘certified’.*note the word registered, certified applies to therapy dogs*
Operation Wolfhound follows IAADP public access testing standards and only provides dogs to veterans with a valid prescription for the dog and after a screening process involving the veteran’s therapist. Technically, any dog prescribed to a person that performs one or more specialized and medically assistive tasks is a service dog under ADA law. There is not and never has been a ‘certification’ agency. There are organizations like the ADI and the IAADP that work to set high standards for service dog behavior in order that the rights of people with service dogs will not be limited because of ‘bad apples’.
I urge those interested in the matter to educate themselves on the actual laws pertaining to the matter. It is always better to state an opinion when one has the actual facts.
If Mac’s owner is having problems with training him, I would suggest that she take classes at The Humane Society of Southern Arizona. They have a service dog class backed by Delta – a group that specializes in training service dogs for all purposes. Only with a Delta certification can Mac’s training be accepting in all 50 states.
About the prong collar: have they tried using a clicker to let Mac know that he did the right thing? Greyhounds are very sensitive dogs – 1 verbal scolding will do the trick with most. They also lack a layer of fat that most other breeds have which is why they look so “skinny” to people unfamiliar with the breed.