MILLS — Don’t underestimate the power of the paw or wet nose when it is attached to a friendly face with a tongue hanging out.
Casper’s Carol Salveson knows that truth well, as does Vietnam veteran Larry Seems, who has experienced the power of a support dog to help with post-traumatic stress in his own life.
He also helps trains dogs.
Both volunteer their efforts at Project Kenny, a nonprofit started by a West Coast entrepreneur who wanted to see service dogs trained to support military veterans and prevent veteran suicides.
Since 2017, Salveson, a former career U.S. Air Force weather forecaster — and after retirement a teacher — has poured herself into her new mission with special motivation.
“At the time I lost my son I was a teacher in Natrona County,” she said. “So I retired from teaching so I could do this.”
Her son, Robert “Bobby” Doolan, served as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army and seemed to be doing well after his service career.
He was about to graduate from college when he took his own life in March 2017.
Salveson, who has always been a dog person, said her son also loved dogs and even when deployed to Afghanistan would find a feral dog to adopt. Bobby Doolan even had one that he wanted to try and bring home.
“When I lost him, I knew I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how,” she said. “I’m not a counselor, and so it just led to service dogs as my way of helping and honoring him.”
Salveson went back to school and became an accredited dog trainer. She obtained a couple of dogs and was beginning her efforts when she learned of and connected with Project Kenny.
The West Coast-centered nonprofit kept its headquarters on the coast while the actual work of training dogs and connecting them with veterans transferred to Casper when Salveson joined.
She began by training dogs in her home, but the nonprofit now has a facility in Mills where nine dogs are kept and training goes on year round.
Salveson volunteers all her time as do the majority who serve at the nonprofit.
Veterans and others gather to trains dogs as part of Project Kenny. (Courtesy Project Kenny) 
Trainer Carol Salveson said the dogs love to go out on BLM or state land outside Casper and play. (Courtesy Project Kenny) 
Veterans gather every Saturday to train their dogs to be service animals. (Courtesy Project Kenny)
The Mission
Project Kenny is named after a black Labrador retriever that Washington-based founder Matt Sauri, owned and wanted to honor after its passing. The nonprofit takes hand-picked dogs and dogs that veterans bring them and trains them to be a kind of suppressor for post traumatic stress.
“A dog can make a difference,” Salveson said. “It doesn’t cure the PTSD but it helps them get through it.”
Project Kenny’s programs involve training dogs to be given to a veteran — a process that takes about 18 months from start to finish. They also help veterans who bring their dogs to Mills to train their own animals to be service dogs.
Dogs chosen for the program have to be confident, trainable, non-aggressive and not a barker. Salveson personally likes the Labrador retrievers and golden doodle breeds, but there are veterans who bring her their own dogs and she has worked with many different breeds.
In addition to basic obedience training, the service dogs have to be comfortable in the public, and able to recognize when their master gets triggered into a traumatic stress moment.
“We train our dogs to recognize the signs of anxiety in our veterans, and so our dogs interrupt the anxiety,” Salveson said. “They interrupt nightmares, they do things like provide deep-pressure therapy.
"We do a little mobility, but our primary focus is on post-traumatic stress, anxiety, traumatic brain injury as well as military sexual trauma.”
The Mills training facility typically has six to nine dogs who are being trained to help veterans. (Courtesy Project Kenny) 
A nonprofit in Mills, Wyoming, is training dogs to interrupt military veterans’ PTSD attacks, led by a woman who lost her Green Beret son to suicide. “When I lost him, I knew I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how,” she said. (Courtesy Project Kenny) 
Project Kenny’s trainer likes to use Labrador retrievers and golden doodles to train as service dogs. (Courtesy Project Kenny)
Trained To Recognize Stress
Dogs are trained to recognize when their veteran starts bouncing a leg or wringing hands or another anxious sign.
Once the animal sees the sign, they jump on the veteran, put their nose on them and otherwise help the veteran recognize they are in that stress state and can use the dog to help calm them down.
Salveson said veterans call it “grounding.”
The use of service dogs as an antidote for post traumatic stress and other issues has been proven through evidence-based research, she said.
Dogs are trained specifically for the veteran they will serve. Typically, that means veterans who live in another part of the country will come to Mills and spend at least three days with the dog.
There have been times with Salveson has gone across the country with a dog to deliver it to a veteran.
“One veteran was in multiple helicopter crashes and was afraid to fly,” she said. “So, I went to him.”
The nonprofit delivers about six dogs a year and since 2017 has trained about 45, Salveson said. She keeps about nine dogs on hand at all times and replaces a dog as it gets gifted to a veteran.
For Seems, 80, a Vietnam Air Force veteran whose role was to provide base security from Vietnamese attacks in the Mekong Delta, he learned late life the value of his service dog. He said he came back from the war with issues.
He has had cancer from Agent Orange and a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress.
He met Salveson at an event at Casper College a few years ago and said he brought a kennel-rescued dog, “Aurora,” to Project Kenny to train. He describes her as a mix of Labrador retriever, pit bull, boxer, and other breeds.
He never realized he needed his own service dog until after getting involved.
“Getting my service dog has changed my whole life, really, my personality,” he said. “I don’t have the anger issues anymore; the dog will just sit and look at you.
"You just have to melt and start loving on her and it will change your whole attitude.”
Seems now goes to the Project Kenny building on Saturdays to help Salveson and other veterans train their dogs.He said since volunteering at the nonprofit he sees the difference that it makes in veterans’ lives.
“You can always sit and talk to your dog,” Seems said. “They don’t judge no matter what you do. You can spill your heart out to them, and you feel better because of it. They are there to help.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
