Demo, a 3-year-old yellow labrador, receives a pat from a sailor in the galley aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on July 14, 2024. At the time, the warship was on its way to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., from an extended deployment in the Middle East where the crew faced almost daily attacks of missiles and drones launched by Iran-backed militants. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes)
NORFOLK, Va. — A budding Navy office is trying to sell the idea of “fur therapy” to higher echelons after more than a year of deploying four-legged, tail-wagging honorary officers aboard warships to boost sailor mental health and morale.
At sea aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in mid-July, Capt. Demo bounded through the halls of the ship and towards a crowded eating area. A chorus of “Demo! Demo!” rang out from sailors calling the dog.
The 2-year-old yellow labrador wedged himself between two sailors seated at a table. Multiple hands reached for Demo, each giving him a pat on the head. “Good boy,” one of the sailors said before the dog moved along to another group. Trailing behind the labrador was one of his handlers, Hospital Corpsman Kindal Kidd.
Demo is one of four facility dogs that has deployed aboard East Coast-based warships since 2023 as part of a small-scale test to evaluate the feasibility of deploying dogs aboard warships across the fleet.
Dubbed the Expeditionary Facility Dog program, the test was initiated by Naval Air Force Atlantic, based at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., as part of phase two of a quality-of-life initiative the Navy launched in 2022 in the wake of a cluster of sailor suicides.
Overseeing the canine program is the Force Improvement Office, which was created in 2022 in reaction to concerns about the mental health of sailors. That year, the service recorded 71 suicides among active members. Another 69 were documented in 2023.
“[The goal of the pilot program] is so that if people start getting into a bad cycle and the domino starts falling, if we can stop that next domino, we can interrupt the cycle,” said Terri Farricker, team lead of the pilot program and force improvement officer for Naval Air Force Atlantic.
Aside from Demo on the Eisenhower, the dog program has also placed captains Sage and Rudder on the aircraft carriers USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Harry S. Truman, respectively, and Lt. Cmdr. Ike on the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp. There are plans to place a dog aboard the carrier USS George H.W. Bush in 2025.
Framed photos of Rudder, Sage and Demo, expeditionary facility dogs, on a desk in the Force Improvement Office in Norfolk, Va. The photos were hung as part of a “Wall of Heroes” at the office, which is responsible for overseeing the Expeditionary Facility Dog pilot program for the Navy. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes)
The dogs, guided by handlers, visit sailors throughout the warships to help individuals feel safe and comfortable and give them a positive mental health boost.
Other measures the sea service is taking to improve quality of life includes putting Wi-Fi on aircraft carriers, increasing the number of non-clinical mental health providers and chaplains aboard ships, and moving sailors off ships while in shipyards.
The Navy has begun implementing some of those initiatives across the fleet. But dogs on ships cannot be rolled out fleet-wide without evidence that the dogs make a positive impact.
“Like anything, we have to see if the juice is worth the squeeze. All this training to put a dog onboard — is any of that moving the needle to increase sailor quality of service and quality of life?” Farricker said.
Commitment and cost
Capt. Christopher Hill, commanding officer of the Eisenhower, was first approached with the idea of deploying with a dog during a morale event where facility dogs in training came aboard the warship to interact with sailors.
Hill said he was skeptical about the idea, calling it an apparent “logistical nightmare.” His concerns were: How does the ship feed the dog when on deployment? Where does the dog urinate and defecate? How many people must take care of the dog, and how will that distract from their ordinary duties?
But those perceived challenges seemed less daunting with each puppy kiss that Hill received during the morale event, he said. That day, the captain agreed to consider the program, and in October 2023, Demo deployed aboard the Eisenhower. The deployment, he said, solidified his belief in the program.
“I was skeptical, too, until I saw it in action on a nine-month challenging deployment and the impact that he had on people’s lives. Just to see Demo walk through a passageway and watch sailors light up — it is so hard to quantify, but it is definitely impactful,” Hill said recently.
Demo, a 3-year-old yellow labrador, poses July 14, 2024, on a couch alongside one of his handlers, Hospital Corpsman Kindal Kidd. At the time, Demo was aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was on its way to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., from an extended deployment in the Middle East where the crew faced almost daily attacks of missiles and drones launched by Iran-backed militants. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes)
The canines deploying on Navy warships are dogs that are owned by Mutts with a Mission, a Virginia Beach-based nonprofit. The dogs are loaned to the aircraft carriers under a memorandum of understanding between the nonprofit and the commanding officer of the warship. The memorandum of understanding is for two years or until the commanding officer is reassigned.
With the dog, comes a hefty commitment: identifying four to five sailors to act as handlers, 120 hours of training, dedicating a bathroom on the ship exclusively for the dog, and the responsibility of accommodating a dog 24/7 for the duration of the memorandum of understanding, including when the ship is in port or underway.
But the responsibility of having a dog onboard is balanced out by the “extraordinarily low” cost, the Force Improvement Office said. The only program cost for the Navy is dog food. All other costs associated with the dog are provided by Mutts with a Mission. This includes specialized goggles, ear protection and shoes for the dogs to be in and around aircraft, a harness, leash and facility dog vest, and a dog kit containing emergency medical supplies.
While those items can total hundreds of dollars, Mutts with a Mission has not indicated a need to pass those costs along to the Navy, Farricker said.
Additionally, the Force Improvement Office ensures the dog has an emergency medical kit, equipped with necessary supplies for a range of illnesses, from upset stomachs to minor surgeries. And the office has partnered with the Army to offer telehealth vet appointments and in-port veterinarian care to the dogs while deployed. The Army is the only U.S. armed force that has veterinarians.
Hill said the commitment to the Expeditionary Facility Dog program paid off and is something he is continuing aboard the Eisenhower now that it has returned from deployment.
Morale is critical, he said, to motivating people to be the best versions of themselves. By enhancing quality of life and work for sailors, morale is enhanced, which leads to more mission success.
“Now, let’s say we added a furry beast to this package. I think it has nothing but positive results,” Hill said.
Terri Farricker, force improvement officer for Naval Air Force Atlantic, is leading the Expeditionary Facility Dog pilot program. She is tasked with gathering quantitative and qualitative evidence of the program’s impact on sailors deployed aboard warships. (Caitlyn Burchett/Stars and Stripes)
‘Come for the dog, stay for the care’
A plush animal replica of Sage, a yellow labrador, is perched on the corner of Capt. Genevieve Clark’s desk at Naval Air Force Atlantic. Clark, now the force chaplain for the Norfolk command, was the Navy’s first primary handler for an expeditionary facility dog. Clark was one of four handlers for Sage while aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford during its 2023 maiden deployment.
“It was team Sage all day, every day,” Clark said, smiling fondly at the plush toy. “We worked as a team, saw each other daily, and Sage loved us all equally.”
The Force Improvement Office works with commanding officers to identify sailors in medical or counseling fields — such as hospital corpsman, physical therapists or civilian counselors — to act as handlers. In placing dogs with individuals in a “helping role,” the facility dog can complement the responsibilities of the handler.
Handlers accompany the dogs to events, classes, and one-on-one sessions offered to sailors. Handlers are also tasked with walking the dog around the ship to expose the dog to sailors who might not otherwise have the option of interacting with the dog. This typically takes two to four hours per day walking the dog to communal areas, such as the galley and the hangar bay where sailors congregate during their downtime. Departments across the ship can also reserve time with the dog. While sailors interact with the dog, the handler observes and extends resources to any sailors who indicate a need for a deeper level of care.
“When a facility animal is around, you see a different side of people. Maybe they were angry and having a bad day for whatever reason. But at least for that moment with the animal, they are happy,” Clark said.
The Ford deployed for the first time May 2023 from Naval Station Norfolk, Va. In October 2023, near the end of an otherwise uneventful deployment, the warship and its strike group were ordered to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to deter a regional conflict in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel by Hamas militants. Suddenly the crew were thrust into an unknown combat environment.
“Sailors didn’t know what they could say or not say [to their families]. It became even more important to have a little bit of normal in the midst of a lot of uncertainty. That was what Sage brought to the crew — normalcy. It’s normal to have a pet, and it is something that takes your mind off the gravity and immediacy of the situation,” Clark said.
Sage participated in more than 62,000 group activities across the eight months the Ford was deployed, averaging 7,830 per month, according to Clark. Actual interactions with sailors totaled more than 18,700 spanning the deployment.
Sage, the USS Gerald R. Ford’s facility dog, visits the Ticonderoga-class, guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy in the Mediterranean Sea on June 20, 2023. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Malachi Lakey/U.S. Navy photo)
Of those interactions, there were 911 documented instances of “plus-up care,” where a sailor would attend an event to see Sage and would ultimately seek out a resource beyond the facility dog. Additionally, Sage was requested by individual sailors to be in the room for 3,368 one-on-one counseling sessions.
“They would come for the dog, but stay for the care,” Clark said.
She said she often observed a shift in a sailor’s mood during and in the minutes after they interacted with Sage.
“I am not a scientist by any stretch, but I would see it have an impact for 10-20 minutes. In a day of a sailor — even in a stressful situation like being on a ship — that can take them from ‘I can’t bear anymore’ to ‘OK, I can get through this’,” Clark said.
Examining the impact
Religious Program Specialist Javarus Stewart was one of Demo’s handlers during the Eisenhower’s deployment to the Middle East where the crew faced almost daily attacks of missiles and drones launched by Iran-backed militants.
Like Sage on the Ford, Demo was in high demand, said Stewart, who was responsible for scheduling Demo’s interactions. There were upwards of 20 requests per day from sailors or departments asking to reserve time with Demo. As the pair visited sailors in communal spaces, people flocked to pet Demo as if he was a celebrity.
But it was the quieter moments, one-on-one interactions, that Stewart said he saw the most impact.
One day, Stewart encountered a distraught sailor sitting in the Eisenhower’s chapel. With Demo in tow, he approached.
“She was having a really bad day. But she hugged Demo, and for a moment, she was not in the Red Sea,” Stewart said.
Kenneth Sausen, a psychologist with the Navy’s Force Improvement Office, visited the Eisenhower three times during its deployment to measure the program’s impact, gather observations and interact with sailors face-to-face.
“Let’s say a puppy makes you feel good — who doesn’t love a puppy? But how long does that last? 30 seconds? A few minutes? As soon as you walk out the door?” Sausen said.
To quantify this information, Sausen designed a seven-page survey for sailors to rate their overall experience and satisfaction with having a dog aboard. He began analyzing the survey results in mid-September to present the data to leaders at Naval Air Force Atlantic and U.S. Fleet Forces.
The survey, Sausen said, covered a range of topics: Are you a dog person or a cat person? How much stress are you under? Does having a dog on board improve your connection with home?
The data and Sausen’s analysis of that information, Naval Air Force Atlantic said, would be presented to U.S. Fleet Forces. It has not yet been released to the public.
Sausen said he would like to see the dogs have a 20- to 30-minute positive impact on sailors. But gauging the impact on sailors during an unprecedented combat-paced deployment introduce variables that can be difficult to measure.
“It depends on what happens, right? So, I’m nice and chill because I got to play with the pooch, and then all sudden, a fire alarm goes off,” he said. “I don’t know that there is a really good answer for what would be considered by most psychologists to be an effective treatment in terms of length of time.”
Dogs on West Coast ships
Lt. Cmdr. Ike has taken social media platform Instagram by storm, documenting his deployment aboard the USS Wasp, which has been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean since June. According to his Instagram profile, which is not an official Defense Department page, the yellow labrador has mastered climbing steep stair wells, flying in helicopters and being a very good boy. His make-shift blue coveralls, customized by crew members, match that of sailors, except his have cut outs for four legs and a tail.
“Fur is not FOD (foreign object debris), but we would not change it for a thing!,” read a post published on Ike’s Instagram page, referencing debris that could potentially damage aircraft. “A little ‘lab glitter’ is just part of Ike’s charm, and there is nothing a lint roller can’t fix. He is here to spread love and maybe a few extra hairs on the USS Wasp!”
The post, published on Oct. 30, showed the dog with his tongue out as a sailor cleaned near a stairwell.
While the pilot program is gaining traction on the East Coast, it likely won’t be an official program of record for multiple years, Naval Air Force Atlantic said.
After Sausen’s data is presented to Naval Air Force Atlantic and U.S. Fleet Forces, it will be presented to the chief of naval operations and the Navy secretary.
Typically, from there, a proposal would be made to the Defense Department to elevate it to a full program, including justification for funding and resource allocation. If approved by all necessary entities, the program would be included as a line item in the Future Years Defense Program, a five-year plan that projects the Defense Department’s needs for resources, manpower, and force structure.
But even if it becomes a program of record, there are some limits that would prevent the program from rolling out to West Coast-based ships and smaller warships.
Ike is the only expeditionary facility dog assigned to an amphibious assault ship because there is a question about whether warships smaller than aircraft carriers can accommodate a dog. Aircraft carriers are more than 1,000 feet long, while the amphibious assault ships are around 850 feet. In comparison, destroyers, which typically deploy as part of a carrier strike group are about 500 feet long.
“Smaller ships are steeper and narrower. They are trained to go up and down the ladder wells. But a really steep ladder well is a challenge for me, and I only have two feet,” Farricker said.
The smaller ships also don’t have extra space to dedicate to a dog — a bathroom exclusively for the animal, staterooms large enough for crew and the dog, as well as the storage for the dog’s emergency medical kit.
Additionally, West Coast-based ships typically deploy to regions that have strict regulations that would not allow the dog to leave the warship during port calls. Specifically, some countries in the Indo-Pacific region require animals — even service animals — to quarantine for 180 days before entering the country.
“If the dog ever wants to get off the boat in the 7th Fleet, they have to do a six-month quarantine. We can’t always guarantee that,” Farricker said. “To go back to my original phrasing, is the juice worth the squeeze to embark the dog and have them skip 7th Fleet port call entirely?”
While Farricker recognizes the pilot program will require years of energy, with numerous hurdles, she said she whole-heartedly believes “the juice will be worth the squeeze.”
“If this is the investiture in terms of what we can do to meet sailors [and] invest in their mental health so they can come talk about whatever is going on in their lives that they may not feel comfortable talking about, so that we can be disruptive in a stress continuum — I find that to be more than equitable for the exchange in sailor life,” Farricker said.
A sailor knocked on Farricker’s office door. In his hands were three framed photos of the canines — Sage, Demo and Rudder. Ike’s photo had not yet arrived.
“Oh, they are here!” she exclaimed as the sailor placed the frames on her desk.
Farricker, in anticipation of the photos, had cleared a wall. She plans to make a “wall of heroes” to honor the dogs.
“Because they are heroes,” she said.
Lt. Cmdr. Ike, the USS Wasp’s expeditionary facility dog, prepares to depart the Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ship USS Oak Hill while underway in the Mediterranean Sea on Aug. 20, 2024. (Sgt. Jacqueline Peguero-Montes/U.S. Marine Corps photo )
