Buddy Niner had seen how a service dog could change a veteran’s life — but he wasn’t convinced one could do the same for him.
The U.S. Marine and Air National Guard veteran had watched videos and read articles about incredible dogs who helped their owners navigate life with physical injuries sustained in combat. But Niner’s wounds are less visible — for years after his deployment, he struggled with night terrors, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety.
Niner, a firefighter at the Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania, felt like he wasn’t living, but merely surviving. Everything changed when he was paired with a black Labrador Retriever named “Bea,” a service dog from Warrior Canine Connection (WCC).
Always by his side, 5-year-old Bea redirects Niner when he’s feeling anxious or dysregulated with a nudge of her muzzle or resting her head in his lap. She interrupts his night terrors and provides comfort as he falls back asleep. At the firehouse, Bea has expanded her role to support the other firefighters, boosting morale after stressful calls and seeking out firefighters who need an emotional lift.
“She’ll go through thick or thin,” Niner says. Now, thanks to Bea, Niner is not just surviving, but thriving. Bea’s dedication to Niner and the firefighters at the Letterkenny Army Depot earned her the 2025 AKC Award for Canine Excellence in the Service Dog category. Each year, the AKC Humane Fund awards dogs who do extraordinary things in the service of humankind in different categories: Uniformed Service K-9s, Therapy Dogs, Exemplary Companions, Search and Rescue (SAR) for Disaster Response and Human Remains Detection, Teams, and Service Dogs, like Bea. Dogs in this category are dogs who enrich the lives of physically or mentally disabled owners, including, but not limited to, guide dogs for the blind, seizure-alert dogs, hearing dogs, balance dogs.
Struggling in Civilian Life
The third generation of a proud military family, Niner enlisted in the Marines at 18. Shortly after marrying his high school sweetheart, he was deployed to Afghanistan, where he was attached to a Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.
“It was pretty intense all the time,” Niner says. “The big turning point was when we had a suicide bomber kill a lot of our guys.” When they returned home, several of the Marines had trauma from what they experienced, and some even decided to end their lives.
Niner came home in 2010 and struggled to adjust to civilian life. Anxiety, anger, and withdrawal eclipsed his outgoing, sociable, life-of-the-party persona. People looked at him differently; they asked crude, callous questions about his time in combat. Finding work was difficult, and he says he applied for “really just anything that would take me. A lot of people just thought I was weird, different, distant.”
He eventually enlisted in the Air National Guard and, after completing the fire academy, secured a position as a Department of Defense firefighter at the U.S. Army War College. Niner felt slightly more at ease working on a military base, but his internal struggles persisted. As a firefighter, he could perform at his peak in even the most intense situations — but at the station, he’d go “back to being my miserable self.”
His fellow firefighters urged him to get help. Niner sought support from several therapists, Veterans Affairs, and his former command, but still felt isolated and alone — like his pain was too much for even the professionals to shoulder.
After an especially discouraging group therapy session, Niner sat in his car feeling “super defeated” and pretty much done with the lack of support and resources. He scrolled through Facebook to get his mind off things when a post stopped him in his tracks.
Finding Friends and Purpose with Warrior Canine Connection
WCC, the service dog organization, had shared a photo of a puppy called “Smitty,” named for Sgt. David Smith, who led the third platoon in Afghanistan and died in the suicide bombing. WCC names all their puppies in honor of military servicemen and women.
Niner immediately reached out to WCC. “I sent a message saying, ‘Hey, I served with this guy in Afghanistan. I hope this puppy does great things, because he has big shoes to fill.'”
WCC responded by inviting Niner and his family to visit their facility in Maryland. Curious, he looked up the organization and was impressed by their “Mission-Based Trauma Recovery” model: The nonprofit enlists veterans who are healing from the scars of combat to raise and train service dogs that will support other veterans with varying needs.
Niner brought his family to tour the facility and was “blown away” by the welcoming atmosphere. “Everybody was kind of in the same boat,” he says. He was finally among veterans who truly understood his pain, because they were experiencing it themselves — and through WCC, they’d found purpose. Niner wanted to be a part of it.
‘This Is Him. This Is My Guy.’
Niner started volunteering with WCC, first doing maintenance work and, over the course of a year or two, training and exercising the dogs. After getting to know Niner and observing his interactions with the dogs, the trainers told him he’s a perfect candidate for a service dog.
But Niner was skeptical. He wondered whether a service dog was really capable of supporting his needs when even the therapists couldn’t. “I was kind of like, well, maybe this is the answer,” he says, “but I obviously didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
He was also familiar with the process, having seen many pairings as a volunteer. “The dog really does choose you and how they interact with you,” he says. Sometimes a veteran clicks with a dog instantly, and others might meet several dogs before finding a match.
Waiting to meet the dogs WCC arranged as potential partners, Niner watched a handler walk a black Lab across a large patch of grass at the facility.
“As soon as she saw me, this dog just made a beeline straight for me,” Niner says. It was Bea — and she wasn’t one of the dogs WCC had intended for Niner to meet that day. But the trainers trusted Bea’s instincts and encouraged Niner to take her for a walk to bond together.
“She was just so attentive … just watching and looking, and watching and looking,” Niner says. “When I went to leave, you could tell she was like, ‘I don’t want this guy to leave. This is him. This is my guy.'”
An Instant Connection
On her first night home, Bea sensed Niner was having a night terror. As Niner tossed and moaned in his sleep, Bea got up from the floor and started licking his face. Niner awoke, confused, to his wife sitting up and Bea standing bedside, wagging her tail. She then lay down beside him, resting her head on his chest.
Niner lay in bed, amazed. It typically takes some time for service dogs to learn the rhythms and routines of their new owners, but Bea picked up on Niner’s right away. “I was lying there for a couple of hours after that, like, ‘Holy crap. This dog was on point.'”
Bea instinctively responds to Niner’s anxious behaviors. He paces a lot — and as soon as he stands up, Bea is on her feet, pacing alongside him. If he’s sitting and bouncing his leg nervously, Bea will rest her head on his lap to help him settle. When Niner fidgets with his hands, sometimes to the point of making his fingers bleed, Bea will nuzzle her nose between his fingers to make him stop.
Gradually, Bea helped Niner feel secure enough to start attending his kids’ soccer games and cheer practices — overwhelming events that are highly triggering for Niner. Large crowds, loud noise, and strangers crowding his personal space amplify Niner’s anxiety. In these chaotic environments, Bea will lean up against Niner’s leg, providing calming pressure while also creating a buffer to give him space.
But Bea doesn’t let Niner ignore the crowd. Instead, other parents have seen her service vest and approached Niner to share that they, too, are veterans, with the same struggles. “You just connect on a different level with somebody else that you never thought of,” Niner says. “I thought I was all alone, but come to find out, there are a lot of other people.”
From Service Dog to Firehouse Dog
Niner transferred to the Letterkenny Army Depot’s Fire and Emergency Services, where the crew welcomed Bea with wide-open arms, as if she was one of them. When Niner arrives at work, Bea heads straight to the fire chief’s office to say hello, then continues down the hallway to greet everyone on shift.
She seamlessly adapted to life at the firehouse, unfazed by the loud sirens or fire bells, and provides the same comfort and support to the other firefighters as she does for Niner. “If those guys are having a hard day, it’s funny, because she’ll go there and do the same thing — rest her head on their laps, or if they’re in a recliner having a hard day from a call, she’ll jump up in the recliner and lie across them,” Niner says.
One day, Niner and his crew were showing off their truck to a group of kids when they were alerted to a house fire. Bea typically stays at the station on emergencies, but that day she had tagged along for the community outreach. There was no time to waste, so Bea dutifully jumped in the fire truck as Niner and his team headed to the blaze.
When they arrived, the firefighters piled out and began pulling hose lines in the front of the rig as Niner pumped the line on the opposite side. And Bea, ever loyal to Niner and the squad, was ready to join them in the face of danger as they rushed inside to fight the flames.
“I walk around just to check on her. Well, here you see her little black, fuzzy butt just going in the door, following the guys on the hose lines,” he laughs. “I’m screaming, ‘Bea!’ She turns around, like, ‘What?’ And she comes walking back, like, ‘OK,’ and got right back in the fire truck.”
And when she’s not on a call, Bea is waiting for the unit when they get back home. Exhausted, hot, and emotionally taxed, the firefighters light up when they see Bea, who greets them with licks and tail wags.
Niner says Bea keeps him looking forward — she doesn’t dwell on his past or what he’s been through. “She’s just focused on her job and me. It’s like no matter what, in her eyes, you can never do anything wrong.”