Joanna Orban
Copy Editor
In 2013, former Idaho State University employee Rebecca Chidester shared the idea of a facility dog that would help in veterans’ recovery.
Chidester worked with the Veteran Student Services Center to implement this idea at ISU. At the time Chidester was an AmeriCorps volunteer health advocate and education coordinator for the Veteran Student Service Center. Chidester currently works at the College of Eastern Idaho.
After doing research on different dog breeds, Chidester and Todd Johnson, director of the Veteran Center, decided to get a labradoodle. Not only is this breed hypoallergenic but they also make great service dogs and can be trained to help with epilepsy and other conditions.
After doing a lot of research, Chidester and Johnson selected a local breeder, Snake River Doodles who work with training seizure service dogs. Hero was born in 2014 and Johnson anticipates many more years of service. Back in 2014 when Hero was just ten weeks old, Johnson, in an interview with ISU marketing and communications, said, “I’ve got a lot of vets in recovery and wanted to be able to provide them a service that is out of the box. “Hero will be a day-to-day fixture. Vets will be able to take her for a walk, throw her a ball or they just can sit on the floor with her and love her up.”
Hero is not classified as a service dog because she does not work with just one person. Rather, she is referred to as a facility and emotional support dog.
Although Hero is located in the Veteran Student Center, anyone on campus can go and visit her. She is a great resource for stressed students. According to Johnson, “She is an asset to the university, not just the Veteran’s Center.” Although Hero is not technically an employee, she spends most of her time on campus serving students.
According to the Veteran’s Center webpage, “Through play, spending time with the veterans, walking, or just having the person pet her in a high anxiety or stressful time, Hero does her job around the ISU campus.”
Hero lives with Johnson who said that sometimes he can forget all of the good Hero does. “I start taking her for granted because I see her every day, all day long.” Johnson went on to talk about how one day, he’d left Hero at home instead of bringing her into the office and someone had come into the Veteran’s Center who in Johnson’s words really needed “Hero time”. He said, “I’d never imagined how much positive energy she’d bring to the program. She’s become a fixture.”
According to Johnson, he can be walking around campus and people will recognize Hero and want to say hi to her. Johnson reached out to The Bengal because he wanted more people to be aware of Hero. He said, “I want people to know who she is and that she is always available for them. She’s just changed lives.”
When Hero first came to ISU and made the news, Alpine Animal Hospital in Chubbuck reached out to Johnson and asked to sponsor her medical needs. All of Hero’s other needs are funded by donations through the ISU Foundation. If you would like to donate to “The Hero Project” you can visit https://my.isu.edu/give.
