Beyond a Blessing
First service dog trained by incarcerated veterans finds new home, new life
I n early 2017, Saginaw County Animal Control authorities found a young pit bull mix chained in the yard of a Saginaw home.
He was emaciated and covered in wounds from use as a bait dog in illegal dog fighting.
He needed help.
So did Ericka Benson, a veteran who had been searching for a service dog to help her for years and continued to hit roadblocks.
In December, both found new life together with the help of a program that teaches incarcerated veterans to train service and therapy dogs for veterans in the community who need them.
“It’s like an angel came down and said this needs to happen,” Benson said. “This means the world to me.”
Meeting Needs
After healing in the hands of new caregivers, the dog, who was named Bravo following his rescue, was taken to Saginaw Correctional Facility.
It was there that he was paired with two incarcerated veterans in the facility’s new veterans housing unit.
The unit aims to meet the unique needs of incarcerated military veterans and address common issues they may face, like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It also includes the Michigan Dogs of Corrections training program, which matches incarcerated veterans with rescue dogs selected for training as service or therapy animals.
Bravo’s prisoner handlers initially spent time socializing and training him in basic obedience. When he was matched with Benson, they worked with him to help meet some of her needs, like helping to pull her up from a chair or from the ground.
Bravo was the first dog to complete the program and be paired with a veteran. Three more dogs have since been matched with new homes.
“It’s very rewarding,” said Guylynn Rubin, one of the prisoners who helped train Bravo. “We know we’re helping our fellow veterans.”
Saginaw Correctional Facility Warden Tom Winn said the dogs in the program will help more than their new military veteran owners. They help prisoners too by giving them a sense of purpose and outlet for giving back.
“It’s just a preview of good things to come,” Winn said.
Making a Match
For Benson, Bravo was a blessing.
She was in an accident in 2004 that resulted in a number of intensive surgeries, chronic pain and difficulty keeping her balance. She spent two years searching for a service dog, but it wasn’t until her husband, Rick Benson, a corrections officer at Chippewa Correctional Facility, made a connection with a colleague that the need was fulfilled.
Rick Benson was at a Michigan Corrections Organization veterans committee meeting when he and Corrections Officer John Hassen began discussing the difficulties his wife was experiencing finding a service dog.
Hassen, who coordinates the therapy dog program at Woodland Center Correctional Facility, connected Benson with Stiggy’s Dogs founder Jennifer Petre.
From there, “everything lined up perfectly,” Hassen said.
Stiggy’s trains service dogs for veterans, and Petre worked with the Ann Arbor-based Eisenhower Center to launch the Michigan Dogs of Corrections program at Saginaw.
She was able to help find a perfect match for Ericka in Bravo.
“Here was this dog that needed a job and needed some sort of direction for the future,” Petre said. “Thank God that we were able to identify that and be able to pair him with someone. It’s the best.”
Bravo even had such a close resemblance to one of the Benson’s former dogs, that for the family, it felt like fate.
“It was meant to be,” said Ericka Benson, who calls the team of people who trained and connected her to Bravo her “angels.” “It’s really a miracle.”
Bravo becomes more attached to Ericka every day, Rick Benson said.
In the weeks since they took Bravo home there have already been positive changes.
Ericka is more active, less withdrawn and is eager to take Bravo out into the community.
She smiles more now than she has in a long time, he said.
“He’s very much by her side,” Rick Benson said. “Watching them together has made me smile.”
