Canine companions graduate, help veteran partners adjust to life at home

Canine companions graduate, help veteran partners adjust to life at home
By Jon Pilsner
Loveland Reporter-Herald

Samba is good at becoming a little barrier between her owner, Paul, and the people around him.

Paul Bang-Knudsen sometimes needs that little barrier. He needs Samba, a black Labrador retriever, to keep an eye on what’s behind him and peek around corners for people who might be there.


Samba is Bang-Knudsen’s service dog, and she helps him cope through the days while he battles post-traumatic stress disorder.


While Bang-Knudsen works on keeping calm in social situations — such as going to the store or in a crowded, public place — Samba helps make sure Bang-Knudsen relaxes when strangers come up to him or behind him.


She also has helped him get comfortable with a society that sometimes would raise his anxiety as he balanced his past as a corporal in the Marines with the present day.

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