He’d been waiting years for a service dog—years marked by crippling anxiety, years of waitlists, years of prices he couldn’t hope to pay. Running out of options, the Marine veteran called a local dog trainer named Mary Cortani and made a desperate plea.
That call would prove life-changing for both of them, and for more than 600 other veterans, first responders and other sufferers of post-traumatic stress.
“You could hear the suicidal ideation in his voice,” Cortani recalled. “I had not trained service dogs, but I had trained dogs for a variety of different disciplines … I made a promise that if he took a chance on me, I would figure out how to do it. He asked how much, and I told him, ‘Nothing. We’re going to figure this out together.’”
That promise is what launched Operation Freedom Paws, a San Martin-based nonprofit that will soon mark 15 years of pairing patients with service dogs they train themselves. Its clientele are 75% veterans and active-duty service members, and another 25% made up of first responders, children and non-military individuals.
“I thought, ‘If we can save one life, then what I’ve done in my lifetime matters,’” Cortani said. “I’ve had the honor and privilege of being involved in this for going on 15 years. There is no greater gift.”
What sets Operation Freedom Paws apart from many service dog organizations, Cortani said, is its owner-training model. Rather than receiving a fully trained animal, clients learn to train their own dogs under Cortani’s guidance, a method she said deepens the bond and puts the handler in control of their own recovery.
“The hard part isn’t the dog,” Cortani said. “If the dog has the right temperament, drive and skills, that’s the easy part. It’s getting us as human beings to recognize we need to do the hard work.”
Dogs, the majority selected from shelters and rescues, undergo a 30-step evaluation before being approved for the program. Cortani said candidates must show a strong desire to focus on humans over other dogs, a willingness to learn, tolerance for noise and pressure, and no aggression. Their most important tool, she said, is their nose.
“Sixty percent of a dog’s brain is dedicated to smell,” Cortani said. “Mankind is never going to invent anything equal to a dog’s nose. They can detect when something in your chemistry changes before you’re even aware of it, and they alert you.”
The same biological mechanism that allows diabetic alert dogs to detect blood sugar fluctuations, she explained, allows psychiatric service dogs to interrupt the onset of panic attacks, nightmares and dissociative episodes.
“It breaks the cycle,” she said. “Instead of somebody freezing up for days, it’s minutes.”
Jeff Wilson, of Hollister, arrived at Operation Freedom Paws in late 2010 as one of Cortani’s first clients. He left the Army in 2003 after being medically evacuated from Iraq. By 2008, the VA had diagnosed him with severe PTSD. He was self-medicating with alcohol and was unable to work.
“I was lost, my marriage was suffering,” Wilson said. “With the therapy provided and the service dog, I was able to kind of find my way, and I started to find a passion, which I hadn’t had in decades.”
A few years later, Cortani asked him to become a trainer. Today he is the organization’s director of operations and training. His current service dog, Logan, a golden retriever mix, is his third.
“It’s a level of trust and love and honesty I never experienced in my life,” Wilson said of his bond with his service dogs. “Once you know how to read it, communicate with them, it’s just fantastic what they can do.”
Cortani described Wilson as someone who embodies what the program is designed to achieve. “His story is the story of OFP,” she said. “The changes in him have been amazing to watch.”
Mario Moreno, a Gilroy resident and veteran who served two tours in Iraq between 2005 and 2009, came to Operation Freedom Paws through a local Vet Center. He said he was skeptical at first.
“I didn’t realize how much I had just kind of checked out on life,” Moreno said. “I hated going to the grocery store, going out into crowds. I always felt like I had to get out.”
He entered the program with a dog he had already found, a young lab-shepherd mix named Kona. The organization evaluated her the same way it would any candidate, and she passed.
“I didn’t understand what a dog was capable of doing,” Moreno said. “Even at her age, Kona has already surprised me.”
Beyond dog training, the organization provides therapy during and outside of class sessions, support groups for veterans, non-veterans and spouses, and community outings. Some clients who struggle to reenter the workforce are hired as kennel technicians.
“We try to take a wraparound approach,” Cortani said. “We’re constantly looking for things to help them put as many tools in that toolbelt as possible so they can live a high-functioning, hopeful, productive life.”
Cortani said she is committed to serving veterans of all eras.
“There are a lot of forgotten veterans who desperately need help,” she said. “To be able to see peoples’ lives be saved, and having hope for tomorrow, there is no greater gift. It is priceless, and I am forever honored and humbled by it.”
The organization relies on individual donations, revenue from a public dog boarding and daycare operation that shares its facility, and its annual “Putts 4 Paws” Golf Tournament fundraiser, which this year will take place on May 8 at the Coyote Creek Golf Course.
“It’s a way for us to get out there, raise some funds, have some fun,” Cortani said. “It’s another way to show them they can live life and do things they thought they might not be able to do, and show the folks that are out there supporting us what they are helping us to achieve.”
For more information and to register for the May fundraiser, visit ofpputts4paws.givesmart.com.
