AMARILLO, Texas-A woman in a cowboy hat and an athletic, white dog zigzag through the aisles of Home Depot, practicing training techniques.
But the dog, which spent a year confined to a shelter, and the woman, a U.S. Navy veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, both step cautiously. Together, they must navigate what is, for them, an overly stimulating environment.
"Did you hear something? What did you hear? Come on, you're OK," Jeannie Smith, the handler, coos to her service dog, Zoe.
The dog looks up into her eyes and, both reassured, they move in unison again, haphazardly passing a beeping video screen in one aisle and continue on to their next test-wailing Halloween decorations.
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced in August that it is piloting a program that will see health benefits for mobility service dogs approved for veterans with chronic impairments that substantially limit mobility, usually associated with mental health disorders.
In Amarillo, a similar project that emerged as a collaboration between local organizations is expanding, too.
"Military personnel run the risk of developing problems such as depression, PTSD, anxiety and traumatic brain injury due to their deployment," says Jim Womack, executive director of Family Support Services. "These dogs can make a huge difference in a veteran's life and provide them with an added layer of support," Womack told the Amarillo Globe-News.
He says FSS, along with the Texas Panhandle Centers and the Central Plains Center, received a grant roughly two months ago to expand a partnership with Hope Lives Here, a local nonprofit organization providing veterans with rescued shelter dogs and the training needed to certify them as service animals.
The grant came from the Texas Department of Health Services and provided $91,759 to the group. Then, local organizations matched the funds, bringing the amount to almost $200,000. This will be used to expand the rescue dog program, equine therapy and a $25,000 flex fund for veteran families in need.
Brooke Schneider, director of Hope Lives Here, said the nonprofit organization pairs dogs, usually rescued from shelters, with veterans. Together, the pairs will spend nine to 12 months training for the dog to receive its service certification.
The organization began a year ago and has resulted in the pairing of seven veterans and support dogs, including Smith and Zoe.
Veterans signed up for the program are introduced to multiple qualified canines at local shelters and are given the choice of their new partner.
"While we say the veterans choose the dogs, really it's the other way around," says Schneider.
Unlike emotional support dogs, service dogs like Schneider's are given special privileges such as access to businesses, hotels and public transportation.
The dogs are taught 38 commands such as turning on and off lights, finding help in case of emergencies and tucking down for situations such as going on flights.
But what makes Hope Lives Here different than some organizations is that training is tailored to each veteran-dog team.
"That's the neat part about it," Schneider said. "They get their own custom service animals."
Although the VA's website says there is not enough research to know if dogs actually help treat PTSD and its symptoms, Schneider claims she has seen the results.
"They just have a different look about them," she says of veterans who have been paired with canine partners.
"When I went in (to the Navy), I had planned on staying for life, but obviously that didn't end up being what happened," says Jeannie Smith.
Smith says she was discharged for substance abuse after serving six years. She says her superiors didn't know how to face the actual problem.
Smith says she has been diagnosed with PTSD due to sexual trauma she experienced while aboard ship.
Long before the Tailhook scandal shed light on sexual harassment and assault in the military, Smith was a 17-year-old enlistee whose experience was swept "under the rug."
"My trust issues come from the fact that the people who were supposed to be there, the counselors that you were supposed to be able to go to for help, people who were above me, they had no training to help me."
For years, Smith could not leave her home - a common PTSD symptom.
"I would love to be able to go to work, and have a job and be able to be more participant in society; it's just not going to happen."
She pauses, looks down at Zoe and continues, "But maybe, I don't know, I'm getting out more with Zoe."
Meeting Zoe began a process of healing for Smith that compelled her to leave the house and challenged her trust.
It was weeks before Smith could take Zoe home.
During that time, Smith said she would visit Zoe nearly every day and had to trust the shelter's employees, trust that Zoe wouldn't get adopted from underneath her and trust that Schneider would be there to help.
Now, Smith and Zoe have been training for four weeks.
They still have a long way to go, but Smith said it has been a mutual healing.
The team trains in Home Depot and other public places about five times a week, learning together how to trust different obstacles life may throw their way.
"I've had a couple of bad episodes and just the connection that we have, she's already saved me from really going down some bad roads. I do become suicidal when I become really depressed. That was pretty much where I was going if I didn't have Zoe, and she was right there for me."
Now, because Zoe is Smith's partner, she says she no longer has to sit at home and be sick.
"I just feel more like a person."
Darin Ham says he also struggles to leave his home some days due to PTSD from traumatic circumstances he experienced while serving in Afghanistan.
"I never used to go out. Ever. I wasn't comfortable, and I felt like I was alone and kind of back against the wall watching everyone," says Ham. "Some things make you realize you need to watch your back. There are some people out there that really want to kill you."
Ham adopted his German shepherd, Rambo, as a puppy and then found Hope Lives Here shortly after. The team has been training together for eight months.
Hanging on Ham's wall at home is an Air Force Achievement Medal for outstanding achievement when, under threat of attack in Afghanistan, Ham was involved in the "neutralization of potential threats to over 30,000 base residents."
People ask him why he needs a service dog when he looks healthy on the outside. The trauma is sometimes unseen, Ham says, and his PTSD is best described by the events detailed on his achievement medal.
Ham says, before Rambo came along, typical errands would turn into an anxiety-ridden day peering down every aisle in Walmart and constantly turning to see whether anyone was behind him.
"Ever since I've had (Rambo), I don't look over my shoulder because I know he's already done it twice. I don't worry anymore."
When the team is out, Rambo trots ahead of Ham, his head held high and his service vest filled with the essentials such as a portable water bowl, a towel and a favorite chew toy.
And he's the one who inspects the aisles.
Gordon Taylor was one of thousands who enlisted in the 1970s during the war in Vietnam.
While Taylor was never in combat, he spent 20 years with the U.S. Army developing defense machinery and training others how to use it, including soldiers from areas in the Middle East.
"Since I've trained them, now I have severe dreams because now with the problems we're having with them in the war. And the equipment they're using is what I made and I trained them to use it," says Taylor. "So I have a problem with blaming myself."
Taylor says he also has lasting trauma from his return home following the Vietnam War and the disrespect he and his friends were shown. When Taylor applied for jobs, he was told that, as someone who fought in Vietnam, he couldn't be trusted.
Staying home and separating himself from society became part of Taylor's PTSD symptoms when he retired in 1992. But then Taylor says he realized he needed to be around people.
"I learned to deal with it myself, until lately."
This recent help has come from the VA and from the little schnauzer he found under a storage building in his hometown of Borger.
The dog has rarely taken her eyes of Taylor since that day. He says she has been keenly aware of days when he's in pain or feeling depressed.
She even crawled under his arm to elevate it after he had surgery and acted as a heating pad when Taylor was diagnosed with cancer.
"When I have headaches, she's like a comforter and she'll come sit in my lap."
Taylor and Precious have accomplished a month of training with Schneider, and they're excited for the pink service vest ordered for Precious.
"It's just an instinct of a dog to do this."
Brooke Schneider founded Hope Lives Here because of her own diagnosis with post-traumatic stress disorder following relationships involving domestic violence.
Schneider says she feels the same way many of her current clients describe: Anxiety and fear of leaving home and entering public life.
"Although our PTSD comes from different experiences, it manifests the same way, so we can relate," Schneider says.
On Valentine's Day 2003, Schneider's friend invited her out to look at a litter of puppies. Without any preparation, Schneider came home with Harley, who would be the four-legged therapist to pull her out of her fear.
"That, and the grace of God, I started coming around to the person I was prior to the domestic violence."
After Harley's death in 2011, she realized other PTSD sufferers could also heal with the help of a loyal canine.
She founded Hope Lives Here with the intent of rescuing dogs from the shelter, rescuing veterans from the confines of their pain and, someday, rescuing other domestic violence victims.
"A lot of (veterans) live in the small towns (of the Texas Panhandle), and they don't have a lot of resources. We're not doing enough for them, and we need to be because we owe them our lives."
Today, Schneider teaches fourth grade at Emerson Elementary School on weekdays, has one-on-one training with her clients in the evenings and weekends and goes home to four rescue dogs of her own.
"I have people calling me every day wanting to join the program. I just wish I had more time and more people, more hands on, but I get it done. Obviously, it's a passion of mine and I feel like it's a calling, and it's so embedded in me that I have to do it."