Take our Depression Test

Find a therapist to heal from trauma

At a Ukrainian K9 center in Ukraine, dogs are helping POWs recover from trauma.

Therapy dogs support grounding, co-regulation, graded exposure, and behavioral activation.

The dogs are chosen for different jobs according to their temperaments.

At a Ukrainian police canine facility about a 40-minute drive from Kyiv, dogs are being used to do something trauma survivors often struggle with: Persuade the nervous system that danger has ended.

Some of the people treated there are former prisoners of war whom Russian captors tormented with attack dogs. For them, even an ordinary village dog can become a danger cue. The animal may be harmless, but the nervous system does not know that yet. A glimpse of teeth, a sudden bark, or a dog moving too quickly can trigger panic, flashbacks, or the frozen terror of captivity. After repeated exposure to dogs trained to menace, bite, or intimidate, the brain can form an intense conditioned fear response: Dog means danger.

At the Cynological Center of the Main Department of the National Police in Kyiv Region,shortened here to the K9 Center, the premise is that a brain that has learned fear can, under the right conditions, unlearn that fear

The word cynological means the study of dogs. Svitlana Kolomiets, head of the Unit for the Organization of Canine Activities of the National Police of Ukraine, describes the dogs there as full members of police work.........

© Psychology Today