Organization that pairs service dogs with veterans opens Joliet location
JOLIET, Ill. (CBS) -- There was some big news for little friends in the southwest suburbs on Wednesday: the K-9's for Veterans program opened its doors.
It matches up service dogs for special training for local veterans. CBS 2's Shardaa Gray was in Joliet when the rescue pets met their vet.
These lovable dogs are not just extended family members. They're service dogs for veterans like Zack Jet.
"Rocky will let me know when somebody walks up behind me," Jet said. "He'll let me know whenever I go into a dark place. It's a life-changing experience."
Jet, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, has been in the K9 for Veterans programs for two years. Rocky was trained in the program.
With Rocky being by his friend's side at all times, Jet said it brings back good memories of when he was in the military.
"In the military, we had a battle buddy system," he said. "So everywhere you went, you always had somebody with you. Whenever we got out of the military, we didn't have that. So having the dog with me to do the exact same thing that battle buddy did for me eight, 10 years ago."
Michael Tellerino started the organization seven years ago.
"Since then, we've done 76 dogs in our program," Tellerino said. "And I'm really happy to say out of those 76 dogs that we've done, we have not lost one veteran to PTSD suicide."
Tellerino added that 22 veterans die each day because of PTSD. That's across the country, but dogs like Rocky help out with their everyday struggles.
The program has two locations: 54th and Roosevelt in Cicero.
"We're over capacity there," Tellerino said. "We got to the point where we didn't want to put too many veterans training their service dogs in a class."
So, he opened a second location in Joliet, where they had their grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Gina and Jim Glasgow Training campus located near the intersection of Chicago Street and Doris Avenue in the city.
It was a celebration for heroes helping heroes.