Sounds bites and small video clips about the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan filter into the airwaves and onto the Web everyday. But they don’t really convey the physical and psychological demands U.S. soldiers endure on a daily basis while serving in one of the most politically and culturally complex wars of our time. Pets In the City had the honor of speaking with Sergeant Allen Hill, an Iraqi war veteran whose therapy dog, Frankie, was trained by an inmate serving time for manslaughter at the Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, New York, just a commuter train ride north of New York City.

Sgt. Hill was joined by Gloria Gilbert Stoga, who founded the “Puppies Behind Bars” program to train guide dogs over a decade ago, and whose group recently added the “Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who’ve Served Us” program to train therapy dogs for veterans like Sgt. Hill with post-traumatic stress disorder. All three recently appeared on a recent episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, joined by actress Glenn Close, devoted to the animals in our lives.

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