Service dog and training provided by Operation Freedom Paws.

“There are times that I push people away especially when it gets close to anniversary dates of certain events that happened in Iraq. Huey won’t let me. He senses it. He’ll come up and start nudging at me like, ‘Hey, pay attention to me. Pet me.’ And he won’t stop until I actually pay attention to him. Every time I say, ‘Leave me alone. Go!’ He comes back and he’s at it again. He helps with fireworks too. We’ll be sitting in the living room at night watching TV and suddenly we’ll hear a loud ‘BOOM!’ It throws me off guard. The first night some fireworks went off, I got real bad anxiety. Right away, he jumped on top of me and started licking my face. It was like he took my thoughts from the fireworks and everything that happened, to ‘I’m here at home. I’m with my family. I’m okay.’ He did that right away! I was so amazed. And still to this day if there are fireworks going on he comes up to me.”

-Ramon Reyes