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Warrior Canine Connection enlists recovering Warriors in a therapeutic mission of learning to train service dogs for their fellow Veterans.
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Tag Archive for: service dogs in training

Healing Together: Wounded Warrior Project’s Project Odyssey and the Power of Dogs

December 23, 2024

For Veterans navigating life after military service, programs like Wounded Warrior Project’s (WWP) Project Odyssey provide critical tools for healing and resilience. Through outdoor activities and group-based skill-building, Project Odyssey helps Veterans build resiliency by reconnecting with themselves and others.

Project Odyssey is a 12-week program that helps strengthen coping and communication skills through group activities, outdoor experiences and a 5-day in-person workshop. Over the past three years, Warrior Canine Connection’s (WCC) Asheville team has supported several sessions, bringing their service dogs in training to interact with Veterans as part of WCC’s Mission-Based Trauma Recovery (MBTR) program.

“Project Odyssey really aligns well with our Mission-Based Trauma Recovery curriculum,” says Amy Guidash, WCC’s program director. “We absolutely love working with Wounded Warrior Project—they’re fabulous partners. It’s another opportunity to bring the healing power of working with service dogs to a whole different group of Veterans. We’re able to show how the skills they’re learning in Project Odyssey—like clear communication, impulse control, and relationship building—connect directly to their work with the dogs.”

During in-person workshop, the goal is to challenge Warriors to get out of their comfort zones, learn new skills on how to approach different experiences and help with connecting the experience to improve their own coping skills and build resiliency to when challenging their own lives. Then, after they’ve left, the idea is to use the things they’ve learned during the program to adapt, cope and build a better life. For many participants, joining the program alone takes courage.

“It’s amazing to see Warriors come together for a week,” says Alex Jankowski, Project Odyssey Specialist, WWP. “Even just getting on a plane to attend can be a huge step. Watching them move out of their comfort zones, form connections and build camaraderie is incredible. That’s part of the magic—seeing their growth and the support networks they create.”

The program intentionally keeps the in-person activities under wraps until the last moment to challenge participants to stay present and adaptable, teaching them to apply those lessons to real-life scenarios.

WCC’s service dogs bring an added depth to these experiences, helping Veterans practice patience, communication and trust.

“It’s amazing how quickly Veterans connect with the dogs,” Guidash says. “There are so many lightbulb moments where they realize, ‘If I can communicate this effectively with a dog, I can do it in other areas of my life, too.’”

Guidash recalls one session where two female Veterans initially stayed on the sidelines due to their reservations about dogs.

“By the end, they were fully engaged—interacting with the dogs, laughing and even taking selfies with them,” she says. “It was incredible to witness that shift. In such a short time, the dogs helped build a positive connection, fostering trust and emotional breakthroughs.”

WWP values WCC’s contributions to Project Odyssey, seeing it as a meaningful addition.

“When we partnered with WCC, the excitement among participants was palpable,” Jankowski says. “Many of them have personal connections to dogs, so being part of the training process hit home. It added a new layer of connection to the experience.”

For WCC, the collaboration is equally impactful.

“We’re so grateful to be a small part of the work WWP is doing with Project Odyssey,” Guidash says. “The program is making such a meaningful impact on Veterans’ lives, and we’re honored to support that.”

For Veterans who attend Project Odyssey each year, time spent with WCC’s service dogs is more than just heartwarming—it’s transformative. These interactions teach valuable life skills and offer Veterans a new way to connect—with themselves, with others, and with the world around them.

Healing can take many forms—a peer’s encouragement, a mentor’s guidance or the wag of a dog’s tail. For these Veterans, every small step forward is a testament to their resilience and the life-changing power of programs like Project Odyssey. To learn more about WWP’s Project Odyssey program, visit https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/programs/project-odyssey.

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https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg 0 0 WCC Comms https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg WCC Comms2024-12-23 13:54:492024-12-23 13:57:52Healing Together: Wounded Warrior Project’s Project Odyssey and the Power of Dogs

Service dogs give veterans a ‘purpose’ to get up every day: Buddy Niner

November 13, 2023

FOX News’ Shannon Bream sits down with Warrior Canine Connection executive director Rick Yount and veteran Buddy Niner to discuss the organization’s ongoing efforts to provide veterans with service dogs. Watch the full story on Fox News Sunday.

https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg 0 0 WCC Comms https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg WCC Comms2023-11-13 15:08:272023-11-13 15:08:27Service dogs give veterans a ‘purpose’ to get up every day: Buddy Niner

Canines and Autonomous Vehicles Know: It Pays to Behave!

July 22, 2022

What do developing autonomous vehicles and training service dogs have in common? More than you might think! Before we dive into this unlikely comparison, let’s provide some context.

Enter John Alsterda, Systems Engineer at Waymo LLC, Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University, U.S. Navy Reservist, and Warrior Canine Connection (WCC) volunteer. John develops autonomous driving technology in his professional capacities, and is Puppy Parent to service dog in training, Nathan.

John’s work at Waymo allowed him to combine both interests, as he and fellow Veterans at the company recently gathered to host a community clean-up day – WCC’s Nathan and other WCC service dogs in training participated. The Veterans at Waymo employee resource group supports and builds community among veterans working at Waymo, including with volunteer opportunities like this one.

“There’s something about how dogs give you their undivided attention and love that is so powerful,” said John. “During my day, so many things pull on my attention and I feel like I’m always multitasking. But Nathan treats me like I’m the only other person in the world—I feel like no other animal or person has that capacity.”

John studied physics at University of Illinois for undergrad, after which he commissioned into the U.S. Navy. He spent four years at the Naval Nuclear Power School, teaching the principles of nuclear power plant operation on submarines and aircraft carriers to Navy sailors. Next, John transitioned to the Navy Reserve to pursue his Ph.D. at Stanford.

It was there he learned about Stanford’s partnership with WCC and got involved in its Mission Based Trauma Recovery (MBTR) program for Veterans. Essentially, those involved help train service dogs for their fellow Service Members and Veterans, which fulfills a time-honored military tradition of Warriors helping Warriors. In doing so, the Veteran can also benefit from social and emotional skill development, improved communication, confidence building, reduced isolation, improved emotional regulation, and reduced stress, which many of the Stanford student Veterans greatly benefit from.

From September 2019 through July 2021, John volunteered in a total of 53 MBTR sessions while working on his doctorate. Not only that, he and his wife, Ashley Fabrizio, also helped with puppy sitting needs, followed by becoming Puppy Parents to WCC’s Nathan, who recently graduated to advanced training at WCC’s Healing Quarters in Boyds, Maryland.

Onto comparing autonomously driven vehicles and service dogs: As John can tell you, the fundamentals involve training the dogs to do the things we want them to do through rewards, like attention and treats. They don’t receive rewards for behaviors we don’t want, and they quickly learn to optimize for these incentives.

“That is fundamentally similar to the way autonomous vehicles can be encouraged to do what we want them to,” said John. “We don’t need to give them treats; they’re even easier to please! By defining a mathematical reward function, we can assign points to behaviors we want or don’t want – positive rewards for good things like staying in-lane, and negative rewards (penalties) for things to avoid like lingering too long on a crosswalk. The algorithm solves this math problem over and over again to figure out how to get the most rewards and avoid the most penalties.”

This is where things get complicated … John added, “because we need to describe complex things both to our dogs and our autonomous driver, not just put your paw on the ground or stay between the lane lines. Dogs don’t understand math, but they can be taught some human language and they understand feelings like good, bad, happy, or lonely. Our cars are better at math, but it’s challenging to describe all the things they need to know with hand-tuned rewards. These less tangible things can be encoded with neural networks, which are a mathematical way to describe things like other drivers’ behavior or how to recognize street signs.”

John explains, “Nathan’s learning process may be similar to training a neural network. We can’t describe to him exactly what behaviors we want. We use commands; he kind of speaks our language that way, but we can’t use full sentences to say precisely what it means to heel or sit close to his handler. Rather, we teach Nathan complex tasks slowly and iteratively, adding one component or adjustment at a time until he learns the whole sequence. I feel like there’s a real similarity there, for things that are impossible to explicitly communicate to both Nathan and a car.”

Simply put, for service dogs and autonomous drivers, it pays to make the right decisions! We get more of the behaviors we reward with both cars and dogs. It’s pretty remarkable to realize how certain aspects of learning theory are not only similar across species, but even in the development of artificial intelligence. That said, an autonomous driver is never going to be as good at snuggling as your dog.

https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg 0 0 WCC Comms https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg WCC Comms2022-07-22 13:54:362022-07-22 16:01:42Canines and Autonomous Vehicles Know: It Pays to Behave!

Veterans train service dogs as therapy in Hendersonville

April 20, 2022

April 19, 2022
HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (FOX Carolina) – In Western North Carolina, dogs will be ready to serve someone in need, all thanks to a few men and women who have served.

Military veterans train the dogs. And during the process, they learn coping mechanisms too.

Nicholas Baird is a Marine Veteran.

“It started out as a volunteer opportunity, but it quickly turned into more; especially when I met Danny,” Baird said.
Watch the full story on Fox Carolina here.

https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg 0 0 WCC Comms https://warriorcanineconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_white_sm.svg WCC Comms2022-04-20 14:01:582022-04-20 14:01:58Veterans train service dogs as therapy in Hendersonville

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