Every day I feel the path we are on is guided. In 2019, I planned to start Camp Fiona for Special Needs children and eventually move into service dogs as the second phase of the nonprofit. When I attended the University of Tennessee, I was enrolled in a class for special needs that included a trip to Camp Koinonia. This allowed me to see if I could do this for the rest of my life. That was the concept we wanted to follow which would give students at the university an opportunity like I experienced.
In Texas, there is an 8–9 year waiting list to get therapy benefits from Medicaid. I wanted to provide them the opportunity to attend the camp first before others currently enrolled in state programs were allowed to participate. Camp Fiona would follow then in a few years by training service dogs. COVID prevented us from moving forward. In 2024, the vision is still on the camp helping special needs children but also shifting our focus to PTSD and Vets. I realize now how the service dogs would help benefit both and allow us to take on stress, behaviors, addictions and trauma emotions.
I was guided to develop a new type of service dog to work with Special Needs which worked so well it shifted my thinking to PTSD too. The rest is history and now currently working with Special Needs having many areas of focus & PTSD using a combination of Therapeutic Recreation and Service Dogs to teach Biofeedback training. The combination will help you stop the fight/flight cascade as well as other areas of different types of situational triggers in social situations. I used to think we would provide a service dog to everyone. I changed that thinking. Not everyone will need one when we finish. A dog, if it happens, is tailored to special cases.
We will be using other techniques — meditation and hypnosis therapy — to help combat the trauma that does not let us sleep at night or function in everyday life. Meditation is done through RT breathing practice and headband equipment. It is an important part of the program with RT and hypnotherapy. When we head to phase 3, the tics and triggers work is done with RT, meditation, and hypnotherapy — in association with Takoda Therapies and Mayan Spirit. No extra cost. That work leads toward phase 5, and it makes more sense later. Past life regression is purely your choice, and it is a separate fee. Some will want to come in for therapy to reengage in military activities, learning how to control the stress with biofeedback training, but not get a service dog.
What matters to us is that for the first time everyone in your life truly knows how you feel. The dog never lies and will hold you accountable for you each day. The dogs do work but if you are wondering they also love very much too! The best part about it is you become happier and no more fake smiles. Jerry Reyes’s smile tells the story.
Please visit with Jerry Reyes, disabled veteran and Secretary of Camp Fiona, for additional information about how this changed his life. [email protected]
