Army veteran Charles Forbes has not gone far without his dog Raider in two and a half years. Forbes developed PTSD after serving multiple tours in Iraq, and the bond he has built with Raider has become central to how he gets through ordinary days, from waking up in the morning to navigating anxiety out in public.
Forbes is one of the veterans who has gone through the service-dog training program run by VFW Post 67 in Sacramento, according to CBS Sacramento. The program holds weekly training sessions where veterans work with their dogs alongside experienced trainers, building skills the dogs will need to support their handlers for years to come. “Raider is my best friend, we do everything together,” Forbes said, adding that the dog helps him wake up, deal with anxiety, and stay distracted when he's feeling nervous.
A Program Built by a Veteran Who Needed One
The program traces back to 2018, when Army veteran Baldwin Wong helped launch it at VFW Post 67. Wong credits his own service dog, Vinnie, with helping him manage his symptoms, including night tremors, and that experience shaped how he approached building out the post's training effort. Wong has also cautioned the public that service dogs are working animals around the clock, and that people should ask permission before petting them, the station's report notes.
Training a service dog through the program is not a quick process. Per the same account, it takes one to two years to fully prepare a dog for the specific needs of its veteran, and the program has worked with a range of dog breeds along the way, including dogs pulled from local shelters. So far, 20 dogs have graduated from the program, with new dogs like Scuttles, a puppy just beginning training, following in their footsteps.
What Makes a Dog the Right Fit
Not every dog is cut out for the work. K-9 trainer Jeannine March said the program looks for dogs that are attentive to their owners, respond well to commands, and are generally easy to train. “The program seeks dogs that pay attention to owners, follow treats and are biddable,” March said, describing the traits trainers screen for before pairing a dog with a veteran. Each dog then learns to respond to its particular veteran's individual needs over the course of training, since no two veterans' symptoms look exactly the same.
Keeping the program running costs money, and VFW Post 67 tries to keep that burden light on the veterans themselves. According to CBS Sacramento, veterans pay a small fee to help cover training and testing costs, while the post works to keep overall program expenses as low as possible. Donations also help support the service-dog program, and VFW Post 67 provides information on its website about the program and how to contribute.
Part of a Broader Push for Veterans With PTSD
VFW Post 67's program is one of several efforts around the Sacramento region pairing veterans with trained dogs. The Sacramento Bee has reported that Canine Companions, a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit, has connected more than 660 veterans with service dogs since its founding in 1975, and that five Sacramento-area veterans currently have service dogs from that organization to help with PTSD symptoms. One of them, Tony Escue, applied in 2023 and did not graduate with his dog Hugh until March 2025, an 18-plus-month process. Separately, DVIDS Hub reported that the nonprofit 4 Paws 2 Freedom runs a six-month program training certified service dogs for veterans, first responders with PTSD, and abuse victims, and held a graduation ceremony for Sacramento-area veterans at Beale Air Force Base in March 2019.
The need such programs are trying to meet is substantial. The Bee's report, citing U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data, notes that about 7 out of every 100 veterans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Research into assistance dogs for veterans with PTSD has generally pointed toward favorable outcomes, including a nonrandomized controlled trial that found lower PTSD symptom severity among veterans paired with service dogs, according to an excerpt published on the National Institutes of Health's PMC database. A separate systematic review on the same database cautioned that methodological shortcomings in existing studies underscore the need for further rigorous research before drawing firm conclusions.
For Forbes and the other veterans going through VFW Post 67's program, though, the day-to-day impact is less about data and more about getting through the next errand, the next crowded room, the next hard morning. With Scuttles now starting the same long road that Raider and Vinnie once walked, the post's small corner of Sacramento continues adding veterans and dogs to its growing list of graduates.
