Teaching dogs new tricks helps vets

AUSTIN (KXAN) - It's amazing the tricks you can teach a dog, retrieving food from the refrigerator, picking up objects from the floor and even dancing. But the tricks taught to Canine Companions are helping disabled and injured veterans get back to a normal life.

"When you first get injured and you're just relying on so many other people you know. I couldn't even push my wheelchair at first," said disabled veteran Jason Morgan.

Napal, Jason's pitch black labrador is his right hand, literally. Napal help Jason with everything, from opening doors to picking up his keys off the floor.

"One of the hardest things is I couldn't get over curbs. Now he can help me over curbs. He comes around and pull from the front of my chair and I'll do a wheeley and pop over the curb," said Morgan.

On a special operation mission with the United States Air Force  in South America, Jason broke his back.  On their way out of South America, his vehicle was ambushed. Their truck flipped, landing on him and crushing the lower half of his body. Now Jason is still recovering, learning to what he can and can't do these days. He chooses to focus on the positive and having Napal is a big help.

"It's just an ongoing recovery. I finally realized I'm never gonna get my life back to where it was but you find, I think the simple things begin to satisfy you a lot more than they use to," said Morgan.

Most of the dogs are Labradors. Some are a Retriever and Labrador mixes. Each dog's training is customized depending on the needs of the vet. Taylor, a sandy brown Lab belongs to Bill Callahan. Taylor can even take clothes out of the dryer.

"He's become everything for me. He's not only physically but mentally my companion. He's in harness, he works. He's out of harness, he's a dog," said disabled veteran Bill Callahan.

But with a K-9 constantly by their side, finding new normalcy is a little easier.

Right now there are 35 companion dogs working in the state.

About a third of them are here in Austin.

Eventually Canines for Independence wants more troops to have them as companions.

"If we could get people half as smart as these dogs are, we'd have a great world," said Callahan.