Something bad is going to happen. Junior Anna Smiley doesn’t know what’s coming, but the deep feeling of worry in the pit of her stomach tells her there’s something. She scratches her forearm, which is already rubbed raw, as she paces back and forth in the school bathroom. Everything feels as if it’s going to come crashing down— until her service dog, Judge, nudges her arm to stop the scratching. Smiley runs her fingers through Judge’s fur and takes deep breaths, kneeling closer to the ground so she can properly see her dog.

This is a panic attack associated with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and a dissociative disorder. Because of her anxiety, Smiley often finds difficulties relaxing in stressful environments or even regular ones because of the uneasy feeling GAD provokes. However, this is all managed by medication, therapy, and her psychiatric service dog, Judge Ment Smiley.

“Just having a dog with you when you’re having bad anxiety is really grounding,” Smiley said. “I’m a very touchy person, so being able to feel him grounds me. He can sense when my [anxiety] heightens, so he senses it and he helps me with that.”

Judge completed 3 1/2 months of training with K911! Training and Behavior based here in Austin. The company’s service dog trainer, Jenny, trained her own psychiatric service dog and worked with K911! and Smiley in order to find her the right dog.

“He actually failed out of police search and rescue because he got too attached to his handler and he wasn’t aggressive enough,” Smiley said. “So he already was a working dog and picked up the training fairly easily.”

For Smiley, meeting Judge was love at first sight. Originally, Smiley and her team had planned to get a Golden Retriever because of their frequent success as comfort/therapy dogs, but that all changed when she received a text with a photo of a Belgian Malinois named Kane.

“Of course, I was like, ‘oh my God he’s adorable,’ and so I actually got to meet him the next day,” Smiley said. “He’s just very lovable, and honestly he’s just kind of a dumb dog when he isn’t in his service dog vest. Also his ears, I fell in love with his ears.”

For the six months Smiley has been with Judge, Smiley says they have bonded immensely as if Judge always knew that she was his person.

“Judge is Anna’s safety net,” her father, Colin Smiley said. “When things become overwhelming, Judge helps Anna cope. Things Anna could not comprehend of doing before now become possible with Judge at her side.”

However, Anna doesn’t find the life of owning a service dog glamorous all the time. She runs into daily problems with people asking to pet her dog or pointing at her, which only triggers her anxiety. Since service dogs are working, they should not be pet while on the job in order to assure they have no distractions.

“Sometimes I don’t like talking to people about why I have a service dog because I’m scared they’ll be like ‘well I get nervous sometimes, why can’t I have a service dog?’” Anna said. “Nervous and anxiety are completely different things. You’re nervous before a test because you’re like ‘oh I hope I pass this,’ that kind of thing, but anxiety is just like you shut down before you take the test because you’re just so worried.”

According to licensed professional counselor Savannah Stoute, who works with a therapy dog in her own practice, many people diagnosed with anxiety and depression don’t require a service dog. She does believe service dogs are beneficial for those with anxiety because of how they can reduce stress or warn owners about panic attacks.

“Anxiety is a psychological disorder characterized by excessive amounts of worry and/or fear that impacts the individual’s daily activities,” Stoute said. “The level of worry/fear is usually out of proportion to the impact of the event.”

Anna was diagnosed with a number of disorders the summer before her sophomore year. The doctors informed that she had GAD, dissociative disorder, and bipolar disorder (BPD). BPD is a condition that involves the occurrence of “manic” and “depressive” stages that indicate unusual shifts in mood and energy.

“It was kind of my rock bottom just because I was so confused,” Anna said. “I kind of always knew that there was something wrong with me in the sense that I knew that my brain didn’t work the same as other peoples’. I felt like I couldn’t relate to anybody because I didn’t know anybody else who had the same problems as me.”

This is when Anna and her family began seeking a service dog. At first, Anna’s mom, Jennifer Smiley, was uneasy about adding a furry friend to the family since she’s afraid of dogs. However, she and the rest of the family have come to appreciate Judge as one of them.

“I love what [Judge] is doing for Anna,” Jennifer said. “They are a team now. I was so nervous the first few times we went out with him. Nervous what people would think, nervous Judge would misbehave but after the first week I didn’t think about any of that. Judge stays by her side, listens to her, he is so calm. And people hardly notice him. Judge is a rock star and Anna is too.”

Now, in contrast to her sophomore year, Anna feels that she has overcome her diagnosis with Judge by her side.

“It kind of makes me happy to see that I’ve come so far since then,” Anna said. “It’s really nice to see I’ve overcome this and that I know that I’m not alone, even though I don’t really know that many people who have conditions like me. But it makes me feel really good to know that I’m not alone.”

And she isn’t alone, there is another student at Bowie with an anxiety disorder who brings her Pug, Guts, to school for help. Freshmen Ava Villalpando suffers from a nerve condition and arthritis that make her anxiety even more painful than it would normally be.

“Sometimes it’s arthritis, sometimes it’s more stabbing pain, sometimes it’s more muscle soreness, sometimes it’s really dull, and sometimes it’s like pressure,” Villalpando said. “Everywhere. To where I just couldn’t be functional. I mean, I deal with pain on a daily basis. There’s constant pain.”

Guts came to Villalpando as a puppy that her family discovered on Craigslist in October of 2017. Villalpando’s mom, Nicole Villalpando, says Guts made it possible for Ava to attend school more often, lowering her anxiety and pain index, as well as giving her a talking point for meeting new kids.

“We tried many different therapies to manage her pain from arthritis and a nerve condition, her anxiety, and her ADHD,” Nicole said. “Some of them worked OK for a time, but, a special education evaluator noticed that Ava did really well when she was around animals and recommended that she have access to animals as part of her individual education plan.”

According to Stoute, mental health issues are common and should be dealt with by focusing on self-care, asking for support, and seeking out a therapist.

“I feel like a lot of people are scared to admit the fact that they have [mental health issues],” Anna said. “At first, I was definitely scared to admit that I have all of these disabilities, but then I was just kind of like, I don’t really care anymore. I wanna be able to help people understand that it’s okay to talk about it and that it’s okay to ask for help if you need it.”