I think any member of the armed services can relate to the moment they find out that they are medically unfit and removed from their command to begin medical processing. Despite years of working towards their career, it can be a major personal put-down. Or, after giving so much time to their service, they find out they have permanent disabilities that they have been ignoring this whole time and re
alize how serious they really are. Well, when I was forced to begin medical processing, I took it as a personal insult knowing my career was over. I fought the Navy to put me back on sea duty for months because I was still working towards my career. When it was clear I was not going back to work for the Navy, I was angry, scared, lost, and I had no clue what was next since I also have a family to raise on my own. Months prior, I had purchased a pup to go through training in order to aid me with my disabilities. I had kept it unknown to the Navy at the time since that would ensure my medical retirement. One day during the months between my separation date and the time I was medically removed from my command, I was finishing with a physical therapy session at the C5 Physical Therapy Unit at Balboa Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Ca. God put on my heart to give Koda, my service dog, to an active duty Marine who had suffered shrapnel damage to his leg and was coming in for a painful procedure to aid in his healing process. God told me to give this Marine Koda for comfort, so I did. As I lay with ice and heat on my shoulder and knee watching Koda comfort this young Marine, God put on my heart my new mission, Hero's Paws. Then as I prayed about it, God let me know I wasn't staying in California, but that I would be moving my family of 2 very young children and 3 dogs, at the time, to Central Texas to begin our journey the following fall.
{Now we aren't a faith based organization, a church or anything, but I have a relationship with God and I follow the Christian faith. I openly talk about God all the time but I know others feel differently. No one individual from Hero's Paws will push any belief on anyone, this is just simply how I speak in my daily passing.}
After this experience in the C5 Physical Therapy, I began an intro to service dogs class that lasted 6 weeks hosted by Pawsitive Teams, an ADI accredited service dog organization in San Diego. I also began working on all of the details that I would need for Hero's Paws; program outlines, business plan, training contracts, etc. After this I began my internship with the US Marshal's K9 Explosive Detection team where I worked with them for 4 months. Once the internship was over, I began working closely with Carol Davis for about 8 months on a weekly basis with hands on experience training service and therapy dogs. She taught me all about training for environmental cues, mobility training, night terrors, about the PACT test, what goes into ADI certification, and even more things to prepare me to run Hero's Paws here in Central Texas all before my family and I left for Texas at the beginning of Sept 2014. She has continued to be an amazing asset and mentor for aiding in our success among the other mentors we have to aid in running Hero's Paws. Since then, we have been working hard to make this a reality. We filed for the 501(C)(3) in the state of Texas in Dec 2014, and became official shortly thereafter. Our story is far from over, and truly, it is just beginning. God has blessed us with some of the most amazing mentors possible and support.
