Salute Our Heroes: Farley and Remington serving together at Fort Riley

FORT RILEY, Kan. (WIBW) - With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, what better way to bring awareness than to highlight two canines whose jobs are to provide support to soldiers at Fort Riley.

Farley is on the front lines of the fight to improve mental health at Fort Riley.

“Farley is trained to pick up on anxiety and depression and he will try and work with the individual if he detects something and try and get body weight and pressures on that person, kind of like a weighted blanket for people with anxiety.” USO Kansas Executive Director Mark Claussen says.

USO Kansas has partnered with Warrior’s Best Friend to bring professional canines to Fort Riley. The program provides service dogs as resource for soldiers and their family members who may be experiencing anxiety or depression.

“I had an opportunity to do an event with USO Missouri, and they had a couple therapy dogs there and I saw the impact they made on service members and so I wanted that program here.” Claussen says.

Farley joined the USO Kansas team in November and originally worked alone, but USO Kansas executive director, Mark Claussen quickly realized Farley would benefit from having a canine coworker.

“We will work with groups of two-… three-… six-…seven-hundred and all that stimulation and contact was making him tired, and I had requested when we could, could we get a second dog.” Claussen says.

Remington joined USO Kansas in mid-February. Now, he and Farley form a united front -- building friendships with the servicemen and women across Kansas.

“It’s very obvious when people are interacting with the dogs, how their demeanor and their moods change in a positive way.” Claussen says.

Farley and Remington spend their days at the USO Kansas building on Fort Riley…you can follow their adventures on Instagram, @Farley4theForces and @Remi4theForces.

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