Tuesday is back in the news! Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about Tuesday, a service dog helping veteran Luis Carlos Montalvan cope with PTSD. Well, I had a hunch this duo could be an inspiration for something bigger. The recently sworn in Senator Al Franken (yes, THAT Al Franken, from SNL), just introduced his first bill in Congress. Would you believe that Tuesday and Luis were his inspiration? Well, Franken had met Luis and Tuesday at a Presidential Inagural Ball earlier this year, where he learned of his story. All of this served as his inspiration to introduce a bill that would create a pilot program at the Department of Defense to work with non-profit organizations to provide at least 200 service dogs to veterans struggling with both physical and mental wounds of war.
"My hope is that at the end of this they'll go, 'A ha! These dogs pay for themselves or more than pay for themselves, we have fewer suicides, fewer incidents of hospitalization, less costs in prescription drugs and more productivity,' " Franken said to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Wags to Luis for speaking up! The bill (S. 1495) already has bipartisan support in the Senate, so I have high hopes that this will be a reality.
Scoop has had a couple of busy days reporting great articles!! Sometimes the best part of my day is when I visit his website!!
ReplyDelete