A family is not always knit together by blood, but by love. It wasn’t until the age of 12 when my dog stood between me and my father and took the punches intended for me, that I fully understood the gravity of that statement, and that family extended to and included our pets. That event solidified my childhood desire to become a veterinarian, and I’ve worked to accomplish this goal since. My personal experiences with animals and their profound impact on my mental health and wellbeing has deeply impacted my practice. Through numerous difficult experiences, my pets remained a reliable source of loyalty and love, and gave me the courage to persevere and a sense of hope to grasp onto. Through my experiences in veterinary practice, I have found that my experiences are more common than not, and many individuals rely on their bonds with their pets. Although numerous people share this sentiment, there is minimal empirical data to support people’s lived experience and provide evidence to their stories and impacts of their animals. I was fascinated by this and took the opportunity to join a lab producing groundbreaking research on the impact of service dogs on veterans. The work being produced by our nationally recognized lab takes stories and lived experiences of the direct impact service dogs have had on the livelihood of the veterans, as provided directly by them. In the lab, I took on a personal project where I focused on the physical characteristics of the veterans’ service dogs (specifically breed, coat color, and sex), to assess whether or not these characteristics affected their ability to perform as an effective service dog. My project, titled “Are service dog characteristics related to mitigation of symptoms of PTSD in military veterans?”, found that the effectiveness of a service dog as a complementary intervention for veterans with PTSD does not appear to depend upon the physical appearance of the service dog. These findings suggest that many different types of dogs could be effective psychiatric service dogs for military veterans with PTSD, which could help increase the pool of potential service dogs. Currently, the waitlist for a veteran to be partnered with a service dog is upwards of 2 years, so increasing this pool will help veterans by speeding the process of partnering a service dog with a veteran in need. Because veterans with PTSD have especially high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide, there is a critical need to expedite the process of partnering dogs with veterans in need. While I acknowledge and appreciate the benefits and necessity of purebred dogs for working environments and very specific jobs, I think it is equally as important to look at the benefit that mixed breeds or "mutts", may offer us as well. As a veterinarian, I intend on continuing my priority and work in cultivating and promoting the human animal bond for all people who are interested in owning a pet, whether that be a purebred dog from a qualified breeder, or a dog with an unknown history that may have been found on the street or adopted from a shelter. A dog, regardless of its history, has many benefits that it can offer and my priority is fostering the benefits they can offer rather than focusing on where they came from.