Hank Ford, a former U.S. Army and Marine, suffers from PTSD and spends a lot of time alone.

"Used to be, I walk into a place and I'm looking for exits. I'm watching everybody. I'm just not trusting anything that's going on and with him, I'm just all that seems to have gone away," says Ford, who is grateful for the service dog he received two years ago from a nonprofit called Dogs, Inc.

Tommy, his yellow Labrador, wakes him up every day around 7 a.m. But one morning in February, the now 3-year-old woke him up unusually early and almost seemed to be trying to tell him exactly why.

Ford was asleep when Tommy began barking - something he rarely does. The dog climbed on him, pawed at him and pushed insistently with his nose.

"He was hitting me in the chest. He wasn't coming up to my face. H

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