Many days I spend my time running between clients in the car and saying “sit”, ‘Down’, ‘come’ over and over…. all day. It’s not a bad way to spend a day, in the company of dogs and their people devoted to them, but it’s nice to once and a while get to work with a dog that will actually a have a job that it has to do. Particularly, an important job. Yesterday was one of those days.

Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist at Ft. Hood military base here in Texas is going to be taking his dog Lady to work with him. Dr. Gordon works with returning soldiers with PTSD and he’s found that having a dog in the room helps everyone deal with the difficult conversations and situations. That’s good for the people for sure, but that’s only half the story.

Lady, the dog, was found abandoned in a ditched car in the parking lot of the local hospital. No one knows how long she was locked in the car or anything at all about her history. All we do know is that Dr. Gordon rescued her and has been training with her since she landed with him. It’s a good match, probably the best match I’ve seen in a while.

So, long story short, Lady passed her Canine Good Citizen test yesterday and is now cleared by the Ft. Hood staff to accompany Dr. Gordon to the hospital and on all of his rounds with clients anywhere on the base. A true working dog!

Needless to say, I was pretty proud of both of them and I’m not shy to say that I had a tear in my eye when they walked away with their CGC certificate to head straight back to Ft. Hood to a group session with the soldiers.