Dog Has Afghanistan Veteran's Back...On Motorcycle

Dog Loves Going On Motorcycle Rides With His Veteran Dad
The DoDo
Christian Cotroneo
February 14, 2017

"With my PTSD, I don't do well in crowds and with unfamiliar people and places. She watches my back."

When the crowds got to be too much for Keith Campeau, he had a friend to take him away from it all: his motorcycle.

Campeau would get on the open road in Edmonton, Alberta, and feel the sanity-saving grace of being alone. It's been like that ever since the Canadian soldier came back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2011 with a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Crowds made him painfully anxious.

"When I first got back, that was my one escape — to jump on the bike and take a ride when I was getting out of hand," Campeau tells The Dodo. "That was a kind of self-induced therapy."

But the motorcycle couldn't always be there for him. And the crowds — on busy sidewalks and in teeming malls — never seemed too far behind.

"It was like World War 3 every night getting home from work," he explains. "When I went out in public, I started bumping into people. In crowded areas, I started knocking people over."

A psychologist recommended Campeau find another friend: a dog.
read more here