Craig MacLellan

His journey of recovery from the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD – a condition he is still living with) is a powerful story, with “assistance dogs” at the heart of it.

During a six-week residential treatment programme for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Craig witnessed his dog moving around the room and remaining close to the person who was feeling the most anxious at any particular time.

Seeing these behaviours led to some long conversations and extensive research about the need for further development of this kind of work, to bring the positive benefits of dog ownership to a wider audience whose needs were based on mental health conditions resulting from trauma.

Since developing this method of support for people living with PTSD, Craig has helped change the lives of hundreds of veterans. The programme is the first of its kind in the UK – specifically training dogs for the mental health needs of trauma resulting from military service. The dogs are trained in task-work unique to each individual and their needs. This can be from medication reminders and retrieval, grounding techniques and calming measures for panic attacks or heightened anxiety, turning lights on during nightmares, waking up the handler and guiding their owner to a safe place.

The National Lottery’s first ever grant to VWD in 2014 allowed Craig to run his pilot scheme, he says without that money Veterans with Dogs wouldn’t exist today. Veterans with Dogs have had 3 grants since 2014 worth more than £37,000. Most recently they were awarded £20k in January 2024 for their Paws for Support project to support on going costs of canine-assisted therapies. The project aims to bring together veterans and the broader community using the training of assistance dogs improve the wellbeing of veterans with mental health challenges.