Pooch platoon gives traumatised troops new life

Pooch platoon gives traumatised troops new life
Christina Lamb in Washington

WHEN John Landry takes his romanian sheepdogs for a walk along the boardwalk of Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, everyone stops to look.

“They’re gorgeous!” gasp onlookers as they pull out mobile phones to be photographed alongside the large floppy white dogs that look like something out of Hamleys’ soft toy department in London.

The dogs might be huggable to look at but they have a far more important role — to help re-integrate military veterans scarred by the horrors of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Everyone stops to talk so it’s a way of breaking the ice for those who are finding it hard to fit back into society,” says Landry, a dog trainer.


The US army is using exotic dogs and other animals to relieve combat stress as it finds its forces increasingly stretched. Next week it will hold its first animal assisted therapy symposium at Fort Myer army base in Virginia.

There is growing concern within the top ranks about the human toll of fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Military suicides have been on the rise. By late November this year, 141 US soldiers had killed themselves, one more than in the whole of 2008. There were 115 soldier suicides in 2007.
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Pooch platoon gives traumatised troops new life