Veterans Moving Forward

As a way to commemorate Memorial Day at the end of the school year, Mercer Middle School teacher Gina Chaszar gave her students the opportunity to write an essay appreciating those who serve in the U.S. military — and the four-legged friends who offer them physical and emotional assistance when they return home.

“My kids would write essays putting themselves in the place of either service dogs and whatever inspired them, or a wounded veteran in need of a service dog,” Chaszar, who teaches sixth- and seventh-graders in Mercer’s Spectrum program for gifted and talented students, told the Times-Mirror.

Chaszar found a willing partner for the contest in Gordon Sumner, the president and CEO of Veterans Moving Forward, a Dulles-based nonprofit that trains and assigns service and emotional-support dogs to American veterans.

“It’s for any veteran who’s dealing with physical or mental challenges, or both,” Sumner said. “And it doesn’t have to be a combat veteran. You could be a veteran that fell off a ladder and is handicapped and needs a service dog.”

After a decades-long history of military service, Sumner — a recipient of the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal and other esteemed decorations — retired from the U.S. Army in 1997 as a colonel select. He was one of the first volunteers at VMF, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary on July 7.

In the spring of 2016, VMF moved into its current facility in an office park at 44225 Mercure Circle in Dulles. The facility welcomed two special guests Wednesday: Charlotte Long, 12, and Ovya Sundaram, 13, who took first and third place in the essay contest, respectively.

Each girl wrote her essay from the perspective of a wounded veteran who is initially reluctant to accept the support of a service dog but eventually comes to appreciate his or her new companion.

“My story was titled ‘Brave,’” Sundaram said. “[The main character is] getting the dog, and they’re embarrassed because they’re pretty strong, and they don’t want to keep the dog at first, but the dog helps save their life.”

Long, whose first-place essay, “Butter,” earned her a $75 prize, drew from her experience of having to use a wheelchair after she broke her leg in the third grade.

“The character does not like to ask for help very much, and I don’t like to ask for help either, so I kind of know what that felt like,” said Long, who also loves writing fiction outside the classroom and said she is roughly 500 pages into a novel.

“[The essays] are far beyond what you would expect of a 12- or 13-year-old writing level,” Chaszar said.

During their visit, Long, Sundaram and their parents enjoyed petting and playing with several of the dogs in training. According to Sumner, most VMF dogs are named after veterans killed in combat, like Ashley, a chocolate Lab whose namesake, First Lt. Ashley White, died in combat in Afghanistan nine years ago.

VMF staffers are thorough when choosing veteran-dog partnerships, performing home visits and making sure applicants will be able to adequately care for their new helpers. Eventually, a HIPAA-certified board decides who each dog’s new owner will be.

“We get very nosy,” Sumner said. “We want to know everything about you, we want to know your finances, we want to know your home. It’s not going to be any good to give you a dog and you can’t support it.”

In its decade of operation, VMF has provided service and emotional-support dogs to veterans living all around the country, including California, New England and the Midwest. Gil, a two-year-old black Lab, will be placed in New Hampshire in a couple months and will be the first dog to graduate from VMF this year.

Though VMF usually bolsters its operations through frequent fundraisers, the COVID-19 health crisis has forced staff to cancel around 30 fundraising events that had been scheduled through this month.

“The only fundraising we’ve gotten is people who have been making contributions,” Sumner said. “I can’t not feed these dogs. I can’t not house them. These are like kids, so I’ve got to have money to keep the lights on and keep them trained and fed and housed.”

Thankfully, VMF plans to hold its first major fundraiser since the outbreak, a golf tournament at 1757 Golf Club in Dulles, on July 23.

“It’s kind of like TopGolf. There are little bays that they have, so you can come in, pay a $50 donation, then there’ll be food, drinks, prizes,” Sumner said.

Aside from merely keeping the current VMF facility buzzing, Sumner said he hopes to eventually begin a major capital campaign in order to purchase land in western Loudoun, which he believes will be a more appropriate environment for the canines in training.

“This is a business park,” he said of the current premises. “We have no place to run the dogs, we can’t build the obstacle courses that they need, so my dream is to have a capital campaign so we can move the service dog training facility to a more remote location, build it up on acres of land, where they can train and they can also be a dog.”

Supreme Court Says

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a no-pets building in Iowa City, Iowa, should not have allowed a new tenant to have an emotional support dog after an objection by another tenant with severe allergies.

The court ruled 4-3 for tenant Karen Cohen in her lawsuit for breach of her lease’s no-pets provision and interference with the “quiet enjoyment” of her property.

The landlord’s accommodation for the dog wasn’t reasonable because the tenant with allergies to pet dander had “priority in time,” and her severe allergies had been medically documented, the court said in its June 30 opinion.

“Our balancing in this case is not a one-size-fits-all test that will create the same result under different circumstances, such as when the animal at issue is a service animal for a visually disabled person,” the court said.

The tenant who sought the emotional support dog, David Clark, had requested the accommodation one month after his lease began.

An employee with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission had advised the landlord during a phone call to try to accommodate both tenants. The landlord assigned separate stairwells to each tenant and installed an air purifier for Cohen’s apartment.

Cohen testified that the accommodations didn’t work. Her nose was constantly stuffy, her sinuses were swollen and she was constantly coughing. At one point, her throat felt as if it was beginning to swell.

The Iowa Supreme Court said its decision aligns with those of other circuits, including:

• A 2019 decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati rejecting a tenant’s request to ban smoking in her condo complex because of her asthma. The court said a smoking ban would fundamentally alter the complex’s smoking policy and would intrude on the rights of third parties.

• A 2018 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that found that an employer did not engage in disability discrimination by banning a worker’s emotional support dog partly due to co-workers’ dog allergies.

• A 2013 decision by the 4th Circuit at Richmond, Virginia, holding that potential injury to third parties is a relevant factor in determining whether a rejected accommodation request violated fair housing law.

Rules On Emotional Support Animals

Those who claim a disability entitling them to keep an emotional support animal in their condo or rental unit will have to prove it under new rules signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis this week.

SB 1084 prohibits discrimination in housing for someone who needs a support animal. It also prohibits a landlord from charging additional fees for a person who has an emotional support animal.

But simply printing an ID card off the internet or ordering a patch online claiming their pet is an emotional support animal will no longer suffice.

Under the new law, “A patch, ID card, certificate or similar registration obtained from the Internet is not, by itself, sufficient information to reliably establish that a person has a disability or a disability-related need for an emotional support animal.”

If a person’s disability isn’t readily apparent, the homeowners, condo association or landlord can request reliable information that a person has a disability, such as a determination of disability from any federal, state or local government agency.

The law specifically prohibits health care practitioners from “providing information regarding a person’s need for an emotional support animal without having personal knowledge of that person’s need for the animal,” and without having treated the person.

Falsification or other fraudulent misrepresentation regarding the use of an emotional support animal is a violation that could result in jail for 60 days, a fine of $500 or both, and 30 hours of community service with an organization that serves individuals with disabilities.

The new law also makes the animal owner liable for any damages caused, and removes landlord liability for damage done by an authorized emotional support animal.

By law, restaurants and other businesses are not required to let emotional support animals into their establishments, and they can be removed from businesses or condos if not under the control of their owner or if they exhibit aggressive behavior.

The new law does not apply to trained service animals.

Corgis Give Back

When Sylvia Stuckey gives back to her community, she often receives help from two four-legged friends. These companions are her Pembroke Welsh Corgis — Clint and Victoria.

Certified through the Fort Knox Red Cross Pet Therapy pro­gram, Clint and Victoria have been major assets for Stuckey when helping the community, especially through her place of employment, James T. Alton Middle School.

Teaching special education at JTA, Stuckey began bringing her Corgis into the classroom in 2018. Often instructing children with behavioral issues, Stuckey said the dogs are a comforting presence for students.

“Some days I may have a student that asks for a ‘Corgi Break,’ where they can stop what they are doing and go sit down and spend some time with one of the Corgis before settling back into their work,” she said. “I allow the students this time and I have observed that this has really helped students to keep from having an emotional meltdown.”

Clint and Victoria also are cherished by fellow JTA staff members, Stuckey said.

“During their planning time I may have a visit from a teacher because they also needed a ‘Corgi Break,’” she said.

As schools closed this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stuckey found ways to incorporate Clint and Victoria into her non-traditional instruction plan. She said during daily Google Meet video conferencing sessions with students, Clint, Victoria and Stuckey’s third Corgi, Gabby, joined in.

“Although Gabby is not a certified therapy dog at this time, she was happy to get some attention from the students,” Stuckey said.

While schools were closed, some JTA staff members and bus drivers remained in the building to prepare meals and deliver student work. Naturally, Stuckey decided to let her Corgis visit with those still working inside the building.

“The bus drivers, faculty and staff were very appreciative and enjoyed their time visiting with Clint and Victoria,” she said.

Born in Heidelberg, West Ger­many, Stuckey’s family moved to Fort Knox in 1972. They moved to Elizabethtown after Stuckey’s father retired from the U.S. Army in 1977.

A 1983 West Hardin High School graduate, Stuckey earned a degree in education from Camp­bellsville University and earn­ed teaching certifications in the areas of special education and assistive technology from the University of Louisville.

Stuckey said her passion for education began while attending Immanuel Baptist Church in Elizabethtown, where she volunteered to assist youth in the congregation.

“I worked with the youth at Immanuel for many years with Dianne Cottrell and Scott Wig­gins and enjoyed the time with the youth department and the experiences that I gained with the youth,” she said. “Transi­tion­ing to education just made sense to me.”

In 1990, Stuckey began substitute teaching for Hardin County Schools and served as a full-time substitute teacher for JTA from 1995-1998. She accepted a position as a special education teacher for the school in 1998.

“My original plan was to teach first grade but through my substitute teaching experiences I had many opportunities to work with special needs students and felt like God was my calling in that direction,” she said.

Stuckey also leads JTA’s Photo­graphy Club. An avid photo­grapher in her free time, Stuckey has several of her photographs displayed at Hardin Memorial Hospital and has one photo displayed at HMH’s Cancer Treatment Center. She said some of her photos have been published in canine enthusiast magazines and in the Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club Calendar.

Along the way in her educational career, Stuckey has received several awards, including the Learning by Doing Award from Carnegie Learning in 2012. Recently, Stuckey was awarded with the Exceptional Volunteer Award from the American Red Cross for her work with Clint and Victoria. In addition to their presence at JTA, Stuckey also has brought her Corgis to local assisted-living facilities to comfort residents.

Stuckey has volunteered more than 500 hours of her time serv­ing others in the community through her Corgis, according to a nomination form from Lynn Romans of Red Cross.

“Sylvia Stuckey is a dedicated and caring Red Cross volunteer who is devoted to improving life for everyone through the use of her therapy dogs, Corgis, Clint and Victoria,” Romans said in the nomination form.

Though she loves providing comfort to others through her Corgis, Stuckey also pursues other endeavors with them. Both Clint and Victoria have been awarded at regional dog shows.

Stuckey serves as president of the Ohio Valley Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club. She also trains members of the Mid-Kentucky Kennel Club in scent work and tracking as is involved in the club’s shows and trials throughout the year.

Stuckey said at this point, she can’t imagine life without a Corgi in it.

“I am honored that I get the opportunity to share them with my students and JTA faculty and staff,” she said. “My students lovingly call me the ‘crazy Corgi lady’ and this is a name that I take as a compliment.”

Therapy Dog Parade

5 Obedient Dog Breeds

Obedient dog breeds are quite easy to train. They are gentle, calm, friendly and smart. Their intelligence helps them to learn new things quickly. So, given below are some of the obedient dog breeds.

A friendly and well-mannered dog depends on its training a lot. They need to be groomed properly to gel with every member of the family where they are living. They should do exercises regularly for mental stimulation; otherwise, they start showing negative behaviour.

But there are some dog breeds that are naturally very obedient and listen to your orders carefully. They become well-mannered dogs after training. So, if you are thinking to bring a dog pet, you should consider bringing the most obedient ones.

Border Collie

This breed is often considered to be the smartest dog breed which is extremely intelligent and eager to learn new things. Along with that, they always want to please people. So, they make a great obedient dog breed.

German Shepherd

German Shepherd is another highly intelligent dog breed which is commonly used as sniffing dogs in the military, police force, rescue groups, etc. They are very loyal and protective of their family.

Golden Retriever

This friendly dog breed is highly popular as a family pet. They are affectionate and gentle to kids and other pets. They have great enthusiasm for life. They are also intelligent and want to please others.

Labrador Retriever

This breed is highly popular as a family pet and has many similarities to Golden Retriever. They are also trained and used in service dogs because of their intelligence, smartness and calm and gentle behaviour.

Keeshond

Belgian Keeshond is not a popular dog breed but very smart, loyal, friendly and gentle. They are always curious but easy to train. Keeshond has a great enthusiasm for learning new things.

Keeping Pets Healthy

We all love our pets and want to keep them healthy! That’s why Merck Animal Health created the Bravecto Cares Program, which focuses on the wellness of family pets and also supports Neads – an organization that trains service dogs. Joining us today to discuss this program, and share some pet wellness tips, are Veterinarian and U.S. Army Major with the Veterinary Corps, Dr. Mark Pelham, and Neads service dog trainer, Becca Hill.

Newest Team Member

When Mac is old enough he will accompany trainees on their runs and help keep them motivated. Meet Mac, he’s the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s newest member – and he also happens to be a very good boy!

Mac was a gift to the Frank Bland Regional Training Center by academy classes 218 and 219.

When Mac is old enough he will accompany trainees on their runs and help keep them motivated.

Mac is named after Detective Jeremiah MacKay who died in the line of duty in 2013.

2 Dogs Control Owners Anxiety

I am definitely a fully obsessed dog mom all the time, but during this pandemic, my dogs have brought me even more joy than normal — and helped decrease my anxiety. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (as well as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder) when I was in college. Over the years, I’ve learned how to handle my anxiety fairly well, but my dogs are especially helpful when it comes to managing my anxiety. This pandemic has brought about some extra worrying, and I’ve appreciated my dogs even more than usual. I know I’m not the only one whose pets help with anxiety everyone knows that having a pet is good for the soul, even without a global pandemic.

I am lucky enough to have two dogs. Olive is a 52 lb. cattle dog and pit bull mix. She belonged to my wife before I met her, but Olive and I were fast friends. While Olive is more protective and standoffish, she is highly sensitive to emotions. If I cry or seem upset, she jumps into my lap no matter where I am sitting and licks my face until I stop. I also have a small dog named Hank. Hank is a pit bull, chihuahua, pug mix, and weighs 16 lbs. Hank and I are joined at the hip; we joke that he is my husband. If I leave the room, he comes with me, and even when  I am exercising or getting ready for the day, he is always standing close by, looking me right in the eye. The obsession is mutual. Not only do my wife and I adore our dogs, our dogs adore one another. While they aren’t big snugglers with each other, they love to run around together, and often stop and “check in” on the other one with some friendly sniffs and licks. The two of them truly complete our family, and since we aren’t having kids, we really dote on them.

My dogs have been great for helping me cope with anxiety during the coronavirus. First and foremost, they give me purpose and something to focus on beyond my own self. No matter what else is happening, my dogs need food, water, attention, and walks. Plus, from the moment I wake up, I have company and something to take care of. Olive, our bigger dog, absolutely loves her meals and expects them on time. Every morning at 6 a.m., she whines and barks until we feed her. It’s annoying (especially when we are tired) but her insistence keeps me from sleeping all day, or just staying in bed, something I can be tempted to do if I’m feeling extra anxious. While Hank prefers to stay cuddled in bed, as soon as his sister starts barking for food, he tries to pull the blankets off of us to let us know he’s hungry, too. When I feel anxious, getting out of bed can feel nearly impossible, but Olive would never allow that. Plus, spending time with them gives me something to look forward to, which can motivate me out of bed as well.

My dogs also need to be walked, and that helps get me out of the house and moving my body. I have found that going outside for some fresh air and some light movement really helps dissolve my anxiety, and I am grateful that my dogs provide motivation to do it even when I don’t feel like it. Both of my dogs get antsy if they’re cooped up for too long, and will remind us (usually through some gentle barking and whining) that playing in the backyard is no substitute for a good, long walk around the neighborhood. My wife and I have made these daily walks a priority, and it helps us stay connected as well — we get out from behind our computers and spend time together. Everyone feels better after these walks and it’s such a good reminder that we need air and movement to thrive.

And even though my dogs aren’t trained support dogs, they provide a lot of emotional support — Hank in particular. Hank is almost always glued to me, and he absolutely loves to snuggle and be petted. Recently, I was finishing up a work task that felt overwhelming. As if by a sixth sense, Hank knew I was feeling stressed and he came over and wedged his head under my laptop until I was forced to stop and give his soft ears a pet. It was a good reminder to take a break, and that simple reset helped my whole mood. Plus, I feel deeply loved by both Olive and Hank every day, something that feels extra nice in a time when life feels pretty lonely. Not seeing my friends and co-workers has been really challenging, and spending time with my dogs has helped me cope. Dogs are obviously unaware of what is happening, and their carefree, loving attitude reminds me to be positive. My dogs are still obsessed with happily playing with their toys, running around, and snuggling with me at every opportunity. Their simple joy helps me feel hopeful and their unconditional love grounds me; even just taking a moment to pet them can bring me back to the present.

I love having dogs — it’s one of my favorite things in life. Now, I love it even more, because I get to be home with my dogs all the time. Their love and the joy they bring me has helped soothe me. They also give me a reason to get out of the house and take care of something beyond myself, especially when my anxiety is threatening to overtake me. Having dogs is always wonderful, but during this pandemic, it has been even more important to my mental and physical health.

Reading To Dogs

A program is going virtual during a time when kids need reading practice and relief from anxiety and stress.