{"id":131961,"date":"2024-11-06T18:14:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T22:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=131961"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:29:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T02:29:51","slug":"second-year-md-student-raises-future-service-dogs","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/medicine\/articles\/2024\/second-year-md-student-raises-future-service-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Second-year MD Student Raises Future Service Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Second-year medical student Alexis Kruger with her service dog-in-training Judy on Talbot Green.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSecond-year MD Student Raises Future Service Dogs\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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November 6, 2024<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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Dogs have always been part of Alexis Kruger\u2019s life. Growing up in Annapolis, Maryland, her family had German shepherds, a Rottweiler, and Labrador retrievers. By the time she reached high school, she was fostering abandoned and rescued dogs until a new owner was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI probably fostered around 20-25 puppies,\u201d said Kruger, a second-year medical student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a first-year undergraduate at the University of Maryland, Kruger discovered America\u2019s VetDogs, which provides service dogs to U.S. veterans, active-duty service members and first responders with disabilities, free of charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey train and place dogs with veterans or first responders with disabilities, both physical and emotional,\u201d said Kruger, including seizure response dogs, hearing dogs, mobility dogs and combat-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) service dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On its website<\/a>, America\u2019s VetDogs said it costs more than $50,000 to breed, raise, train, and place one assistance dog. All services are free of charge for the recipient and the not-for-profit organization relies on donations from individuals, corporations, foundations, businesses and community groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As part of her training, Judy accompanies Alexis Kruger everywhere.
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Kruger gets a puppy at between 2-3 months old and keeps it to age 16-20 months. She raised three service dogs while as an undergrad and is on her second in medical school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJudy loves every person as if they were her long-lost best friend,\u201d said Kruger of her current service dog, a black Labrador retriever. The first four dogs were paired with veterans suffering from PTSD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annapolis is home to the U.S. Naval Academy and Kruger has immediate family who served in the military. She founded Student Efforts to Reach Veteran Empowerment (SERVE), a community service group connecting BU medical students with veterans and students serving in the military on topics related to veterans\u2019 health and veterans\u2019 issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kruger majored in psychology at Maryland and was interested in mental health and PTSD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPTSD is a psychological condition that is characterized by high levels of anxiety and high levels of depression,\u201d said Terence Keane<\/a>, PhD, professor of psychiatry and clinical psychology, associate chief of staff for research and development at VA Boston Healthcare System and director of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder\u2019s Behavioral Science Division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That anxiety can present as flashbacks and recurring nightmares related to the traumatic event. Anger, isolation and negative thinking are other reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStructure is one of the first casualties of PTSD. People are just so internally focused,\u201d said Keane. \u201cAnything that structures people\u2019s lives, like the care of a service animal is good. Getting people up and out of the house, exercising, feeding the dog, all these things add structure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdditionally, there is the love, attention and the affection of the relationship, all of which are probably foreign emotions to a lot of people who are in many ways stuck in their own sense of their trauma, their horror or their fears,\u201d said Keane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many medications, these service dogs work well for some people but not for others, Keane said. The relationship requires updates to training for dog and owner as well as buy-in by the new owner, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Service dog Judy is trained to wait patiently while in class, on public transit, in restaurants.
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Kruger and other volunteer puppy raisers provide a valuable intermediate step in the process, training a puppy in the basics while socializing it to being around people in areas that aren\u2019t always welcoming like crowded sidewalks, restaurants and public buildings, public transit, planes and even college classrooms. They must become acclimated to sirens or other loud noises as well. Plus, they can\u2019t chew or damage anything in the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a lot to impart in a year, especially for someone with a busy medical school schedule, but Kruger felt she could handle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt that point she\u2019d already raised three and was on her fourth,\u201d said Melissa Harrington, America\u2019s VetDogs puppy program advisor for the DC\/Metro area. \u201cOnce you have someone who\u2019s outstanding like Lexi, you 100 percent follow anything she says.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of Kruger\u2019s job is to always have Judy with her. They walk the campus, go to class together, run errands, go into restaurants. When she encounters resistance to access for the dog, Kruger feels it is her mission to educate the public on their role and importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very comfortable explaining it to people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Judy gives her life structure as well, bringing her back into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are days that I\u2019m sure I would be sitting there at my desk for 12 hours straight studying if I didn\u2019t have this dog that come\u2019s over to me and says, \u2018I\u2019d like to go for a walk now,\u2019\u201d Kruger said. While America\u2019s VetDog\u2019s certified service dog instructors ultimately teach service dogs their specific tasks and skills, Kruger does do some rudimentary work. One of her favorite exercises is teach Judy to \u201crest,\u201d where the dog put its head in her lap and exerts a downward pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s used as a grounding tool for someone who might be having a tough time in public, getting overwhelmed, having panic attacks,\u201d said Kruger. \u201cThe dog sits there with you, with his head on your lap, and it\u2019s very calming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After spending a year or more with a dog, it is hard to say goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always bittersweet giving them up but seeing them go on to do the job that they are trained for is rewarding,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s everything they\u2019ve ever worked for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dogs have always been part of Alexis Kruger\u2019s life. Growing up in Annapolis, Maryland, her family had German shepherds, a Rottweiler, and Labrador retrievers. By the time she reached high school, she was fostering abandoned and rescued dogs until a new owner was found. \u201cI probably fostered around 20-25 puppies,\u201d said Kruger, a second-year medical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22573,"featured_media":127258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":"Service Animals"},"tags":[414,392,445,446,405,360],"bu-publication":[366],"medicine-article-category":[369],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[384],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[390,368],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/131961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22573"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131961"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/131961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139606,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/131961\/revisions\/139606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=131961"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=131961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}