Ben + Tank

Tank came into our program in June 2014 through the sponsorship of The Wintercreek Foundation. Tank is a 3 year old male staffordshire terrier mix that we rescued from the San Diego County Animal Services Central Campus. Tank (then named Armando) smiled at us with the sweetest, most genuine smile while he wiggled his bum and wagged his tail through the kennel door. We knew he was the perfect fit for our program after evaluating his tolerance of noise, movement, approach from strangers, his ability to share his possessions, and his overall great behavior and affection toward people. Tank had been at the shelter for over 90 days on the day that he was adopted into the Shelter to Soldier™ program.

Ben applied to our program in the Spring of 2015, and was perhaps one of our most driven applicants. He returned all of his application materials within one business day of inquiring about our program. Soon after, he met with our training team to interact with all of our service dogs in training and knew that Tank was the one for him. Even after trying to encourage him to meet some other dogs before all of us made a decision, Ben was certain that Tank was the dog for him, and assured us that we would see that connection come out as we work together in handler training. He couldn’t have been more right, they are made for each other. After 5 months of handler training, the pair graduated our program on August 1, 2015 and have had a wonderful journey since.