[SOF_VET]

Richard,

Thanks for putting this out there. The bottomline is that we in the veterinary community have fewer answers than the physicians and psychologists. In reading this article, the following statements bother me:

Quote: "There are no official statistics, but Burghardt estimates that half of the dogs that return with PTSD or other behavioral hitches..."

Quote: "The decision to officially label the dogs' condition as PTSD was made by a working group of dog trainers and other specialists at Lackland. In most cases, such labeling of animal behavior would be subjected to peer review and scrutiny in veterinary medical journals."

Quote: "But Burghardt and others in the group decided that they could not wait for that kind of lengthy professional vetting — that a delay could endanger those who depend on the dogs."

I'm throwing the BS flag out on that. We've been at war for over a decade, these reports started at a trickle and are now at an all-time high. The Dog Center has one veterinarian in a behavioral residency right now as we speak. They have had plenty of time to pull data retrospectively, analyze it and give us some answers.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are inundated with medical, surgical and behavioral cases and consults, and as typical in the Army these days are undermanned and underfunded; however, this condition must be considered a high priority.

Cheers,

Dale