Paws for Vets founder knew what PTSD felt like

Michele Malloy lost her 11 week old grandson when he died suddenly. That trauma changed everything she was feeling inside, as well as her outlook on the future. In a way, she ended up knowing what PTSD feels like. She also did something about it after discovering something that helped her heal. She started Paws for Vets because she knew what pain felt like.

That's really the biggest point here. We can all understand what the veterans are going through by remember what we felt like after a life altering event in our own lives.

A family member dying suddenly.
A life threatening event, an accident or the worry of having medical diagnosis like cancer.

One minute your life is pretty much laid out and your have your routine. You get up at the same time every morning and start your day the same way everyday. The people in your life are always expected to be there doing what they always do. Each day, there are parts of our lives we just expect to be there but when suddenly the routine and "normal" parts of our lives are gone, it is shocking and traumatic. Everything inside of skin is put into a tailspin because you know nothing will ever be the same way again.

Well, this is what PTSD begins with. Life changing events that are extreme and usually multiple events piled one on another. When you are a combat veteran, you have the usual things happen just like everyone else, but you also have to try to heal from the events that happen in war. Michele Malloy is one of those rare people able to take their own pain and do some good for others.

Michele Malloy, who founded Paws for Vets, holds Ginger. "From the moment I got her — from the moment even that I knew about her — I started feeling better, " says Malloy, who was in despair after the death of an infant grandson. (GEORGE SKENE, ORLANDO SENTINEL / June 24, 2010)

For wounded warriors, Orlando nonprofit brings healing on a leash

By Kate Santich, Orlando Sentinel

June 26, 2010


By the time Jason Jensen returned from his last deployment in Iraq, he already knew something was wrong. Physically, the marine had escaped the sniper fire and roadside bombing attempts that punctuated daily life, but he was not the same man who had enlisted at age 29.

Now 44, he was edgy, anxious and hyper-vigilant. He could never let himself relax, and he had no patience for the petty grievances his subordinates would bring to him. For that matter, he didn't want to deal with people at all, sometimes even his own wife and children.

Then he met Yahtzee, a 2-year-old German shepherd.

"I wasn't really a dog person," Jensen admits. "But Yahtzee has been a real blessing. Just being around him calms me down."

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury and anger issues, Jensen is one of a handful of soldiers being helped by a new nonprofit organization founded by an Orlando woman. Paws for Vets is her grassroots attempt to provide psychiatric service dogs, canine trainers and supplies to servicemen and women in need — to share with them the same profound healing a pup named Ginger once brought her.
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Orlando nonprofit brings healing on a leash