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Posted at: 10/23/2009 7:02 PM Service Dog Legislation(ABC 6 NEWS) – U.S Senator Al Franken is celebrating the passage of his first piece of legislation in the senate. The new service dogs of veterans act will allow veterans to receive some much-needed help from 4-legged friends. "I’m an infantry soldier and when I was in Iraq, I was in Soder City, very rough neighborhood in northern Baghdad,” Zachary Gore. Rochester's Zachary Gore knows first hand how war can affect soldiers. "You see a lot of guys, especially front line soldiers who come back with PRSD and stuff and the mental anguishes and stuff of battle, possibly seeing friends and buddies of their being would and killed in action,” he says. Now many soldiers will have a companion to rely on when they step off the front lines, thanks to the service dogs for veterans act. The legislation establishes a pilot program to provide wounded military veterans with highly trained canines. Rochester master dog trainer Kim Radke trains dogs for veterans and says these kinds of dogs can help out on a number of fronts. "If somebody has special needs, they need the dog to help wake them up in the morning or if they need the dog to help opens the doors or if somebody is limited to help pick things up,” says Radke. She says, for veterans, there's more to a service dog than what meets the eye. "Somebody to be there with them through the good times and the low times that they may have and I just think it's really hard for other humans to understand, so it gives them somebody to relate to,” she says. Lawmakers hope they will help improve the quality of life for disabled veterans after active service. And gore believes this type of legislation will help to do exactly that.
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