Daines Introduces Legislation to Aid Veterans With Service Animals

Press Release

Representative Steve Daines introduced legislation today to ensure that veterans with service animals are not unnecessarily burdened while attempting to receive care at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities.

The Expanding Access for Veterans' Service Animals Act asks that the VA create and implement a certification process for therapeutic animals that mitigate the effects of mental health conditions and requires the VA to allow service animals to stay with veterans while they receive inpatient care.

Daines introduced the legislation following a listening session in Kalispell, Montana with veterans who had experienced delayed or effective denial of care because of a VA policy that does not allow them to keep their service animal by their side at inpatient facilities.

"I heard from veterans across Montana who were frustrated with the VA policy that denied them from having their service or therapeutic animals by their side. The policy often resulted in denied or delayed care for veterans and unnecessary stress for both them and their service animals," Daines said. "Our nation's veterans should have every available resource to reduce the impact of their injuries. The Expanding Access for Veterans' Service Animals Act seeks to align the VA's designation of therapeutic animals with service animals and improve care for veterans with these important animals at inpatient VA facilities."

Many veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI) rely on their service animals' therapeutic qualities. Daines' bill would work toward erasing the VA's separate categorization of service and certified therapeutic animals.

Montana veteran Ronda Kirby attended Daines' Kalispell listening session. Due to injuries she sustained while serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, she relies on her service dog Ressi.

"Through my own suffering and also through many of my fellow veterans, I have learned about a label that society has put on some of us, a diagnosis called PTSD. This is not a disability that has forced us into a wheelchair for the rest of our lives or has left us deaf or without the capability to see; but it's a disability that has left us even more debilitated and too many times, taken lives. PTSD is a disability that I use a service animal for, but they won't let me enter a VA facility with it. So while I am receiving treatment at a VA facility, I had to leave my service animal at home - 200 miles away. All I'm wanting to do is to get back to my "wheelchair,'" Kirby said. "I sincerely appreciate and thank Congressman Daines for his efforts to assist veterans with service animals and help keep the promises that veterans were given."

Bill Austin of Polson, Montana, who served in the Army, National Guard and Air National Guard, also thanked Daines for his efforts to improve the VA's service animal policy.

"When a veteran's service dog is taken away from him or her it places stress on both of them because they are a team that depend on each other. They protect each other and they know instinctively that they have each other's backs," Austin said. "I would like to thank Congressman Steve Daines, who has been instrumental in trying to effect change for veterans like me who depend on their service dogs being with them at VA facilities so that they can receive the health care and treatment they need."

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