Officer and K9 Honor Vets by Doing 22 Pushup Challenge

By D.H. Callahan On June 18, 2016 0

Officer Small and Sampson

When you’re a dog, pushups don’t come easy, but this dedicated pup decided to take this challenge head on. Michelle Small and her loyal K9 Sampson are doing the challenge of 22 pushups a day for 22 days to honor the American Heroes who succumb to the stresses of PTSD and commit suicide every day.

Nate Koehn, a U.S. Army Veteran launched the 22 Veterans Daily Challenge.

“I started thinking to myself, what can I do here in Michigan to kind of get the word out. I started the challenge… but just with push ups. If you’re challenged, just like the ice bucket challenge, you have 22 hours,” explained Koehn. “One hour for every veteran that falls victim to suicide every day…film yourself doing it, post it online, everyone likes to see.”

Officer Michelle Small and K9 Sampson took this challenge head-on, hoping that they too can bring awareness to the stresses that weigh heavily on our American veterans. 22 suicides a day is absolutely heart-wrenching to think about. The men and women of our military dedicated themselves to make our country a better place to live in; they should not have to suffer because of it.

Sampson is a 4 year old sable German Shepard from Holland. He is certified as a dual purpose K9 in Patrol and narcotics detection. Michelle has 16 years on as a Corporal with the Bath Police Department in Maine. She has been a K9 handler since 2003. Sam and Michelle like to work on obedience in their spare time, so she turned her camera on to see what he would do (resulting in the awesome video below). Any time they can fit in obedience, a little exercise, and awareness is a good use of time for this dynamic duo.