Dog Tag Buddies brings healing to local veteran
A gabled house with a killer view of the Mission Mountains is home to Bill and Janet Austin and their dogs, Gretchen and Zippy.
The Austins moved to Montana in 2013, because “it’s quiet,” Bill said. Outside, two horses nibble on greening-up spring grass; there’s a chicken house, a greenhouse, a tractor, and other farm accoutrements.
Wriggly Zippy is a carefree Boxer, but four-year-old Gretchen has a serious side. The regal black Great Dane with splashy white stockings and white beauty marks is a service dog for Bill.
Since very few people speak German, Bill taught Gretchen commands in German thinking people would think Gretchen couldn’t understand English. Bill studied German in high school and lived in Germany for three years.
Gretchen and Bill met a trainer through an organization called Dog Tag Buddies, but there’s more to the story before Gretchen came on the scene.
First there was a wonderful dog named JP, a blue merle Great Dane puppy. Originally Bill was going to train JP to be a service dog for another veteran “who was worse than I was,” Bill explained. “What happened was, JP and I connected.”
But he needed a nudge from Janet about his response to JP, the puppy with enormous feet.
“Don’t you get it?” Janet asked him.
“Get what?” he said.
“This is the first time in two years that you’ve smiled and laughed,” Janet told him.
So JP became Bill’s service dog.
“JP was an incredible pup. Always, always spot on with everything. Because of the way he was, his training, businesses where we would go would use JP as a gauge to identify (and compare) other people’s service dogs,” Bill explained.
An honest, look-you-in-the-eyes guy, Bill pours cups of good coffee and sits down to talk about how Gretchen and he became a duo.
The retired veteran spent 13 years in the U.S. Army infantry, and is no stranger to conflicts around the world, including two tours in Bosnia and two in Afghanistan. He also served during the invasion of Grenada, in Iran, and was operational during conflicts in Mogadishu, Somalia, and Just Cause in Panama, to remove Manuel Noriega
Bill said he might get emotional with some questions and the memories they elicit. “It’s okay,” he added. “I’ll deal with it; I’ve been dealing with it for quite some time.”
Bill was finishing his last tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2011 on a four-man medical liaison team as an operator, in charge of the team's tactical operations, communication and coordination, with a nurse, doctor and another operator. As the first point of entry to a medical evacuation, the team’s job was to get the sick and wounded out of the theatre field, stabilize the patients and get them on a plane to Landstuhl Air Force Base in Germany.
“My last tour was my hardest tour,” Bill said. “My one friend was blown up twice in less than five minutes. I did not recognize him; he was black from the blast, and his arms were dangling. I told the other guy to watch his arms, and then he started talking.”
Bill stopped as the memory and emotions welled up, “and I realized who he was.”
“My words to him were, ‘Mark, what the hell are you doing?’” he said.
Another day, the liaison team was in the middle of a medical evacuation when there was a loud explosion on the plane and the roof started falling in on the team.
“That’s how I got my traumatic brain injury,” Bill said.
Coming back “after something like that” was tough. In addition to the people they lost were 54 quadruple amputees, and “I cannot even tell you how many amputees from blasts,” he said, like Ronan veteran Tommy Parker.
He was medically retired in 2011. “I was broke when I came home,” Bill said. “That’s when JP came into my life; that’s why I say he gave me a reason to live.”
The Austins lived in Delaware at that time and moved to Montana two years later. Sadly, JP died five years ago on Bill’s birthday of osteosarcoma, which is bone cancer. As anyone who has lost a dog knows, it’s losing part of your heart and a family member.
Bill wasn’t going to get another support dog, but one day he and Janet and Zippy were checking fences, and Janet noted it was weird to have just the three of them.
“Then my brain, my logic kicked in,” Bill remembered. “It was like we lose loved ones to death, but it doesn’t stop us from loving. We lose friends, but that doesn’t stop us from making friends. That kind of got me looking (for a service dog) again.”
DeeDe Baker, the head of Dog Tag Buddies, based in Billings, had seen a video of an angry woman who objected to JP being in a restaurant. The footage had been recorded in Delaware and posted online.
Baker wanted to meet them since they lived in Montana. Coincidentally Bill and Janet had pulled their camper trailer to Billings, so Baker came to the campground.
“It was a wonderful connection,” Bill said. “I believe in what she does and how she does it.”
Bill explained that Baker, through Dog Tag Buddies, has a trainer in the Mission Valley area and that’s who helped Bill train Gretchen.
“Gretchen is much more vocal than JP was. She tends to bark more (but not uncontrollably) and make other vocal sounds. She also had to relearn some of her skills,” Bill said. He explained that some dogs experience a loss of training when they are 2 years old. Luckily, Gretchen had only three things to relearn and they came back quickly.
Bill said it’s up to dog handlers to reinforce training so the dog continues to respond properly when given commands.
Gretchen is bigger than JP was, tipping the scales at 175 lbs. while JP weighed 157. Both dogs needed to be large because Bill has mobility issues. First JP and now Gretchen help pull him to his feet.
With a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, Bill also has “a very exaggerated startle reflex,” which is common with folks with PTSD. Gretchen alerts him if someone is approaching from behind him.
“Once you have a Great Dane as a pup, you are smitten,” Bill wrote. “They steal your soul. They are absolutely good with the whole family, but they are loyal to only one person.”
Dog Tag Buddies builds bonds and purpose
The Billings-based Dog Tag Buddies is a unique organization that pairs canines with vets who need the love and support a dog can offer.
According to dogtagbuddies.org, founder DeeDe Baker, through her tenacity and passion, “has grown Dog Tag Buddies from a kitchen table conversation to the organization it is today.“
Baker’s husband is a combat veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom as an E7 Scout Platoon Sgt. in the Montana National Guard. “He came home a changed man,” Baker writes.
His Humvee suffered an IED explosion in 2005, and while he survived, he was diagnosed with hidden injuries: PTSD and TBI.
“As I watched him on his rough days, I noticed something what would soon change both of our lives. I watched him lay on the floor with his dogs, and I watched his demeanor change almost instantly. He calmed down. His anger dissipated. He became a bit more of the man I knew. And, of course, the dogs loved every moment of his attention,” Baker explained on her website.
His story was not unique. A couple of years after he came home, Baker said he started to share how important the dogs had been in his day-to-day dealings with PTSD and TBI. That was the start of Dog Tag Buddies in 2015.
Bill Austin especially appreciates how Baker makes home visits and checks to make sure veterans applying for Dog Tag Buddies have sufficient support from family and friends. She also makes sure the service dogs will have sufficient shelter and care.
“DeeDe facilitates trainers all over Montana,” Bill said. Veterans can go to the trainers or trainers come to the veterans, helping them learn to train their own dog.
“What started as just wanting to help veterans build new bonds and purpose through the training of a pet has transformed into a therapeutic program that provides so much more than a service dog,” she writes. “We strive to reduce deaths by suicide, transform the mental health conversation and how we approach it, and most importantly, to help veterans live more fulfilling lives.”
Learn more at dogtagbuddies.org or call 406-969-1227. Dog Tag Buddies also has a Facebook presence.
Veteran Bill Austin takes his service dog, Gretchen, through some commands at his home in Pablo. (Berl Tiskus/Leader)