Mark Patton: ‘Anything Is Possible’

It was during an outing during the second week of service dog class when Mark Patton realized something: “I caught myself singing ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ by Bob Marley, and I was saying hello to every stranger I saw, and I realized that before I had Shayne [my service dog] in my life, those hellos to people would’ve been suspicious, afraid they were judging me in my chair. And the way I was able to walk through that grocery store, I have not felt that alive since I’ve been in a wheelchair. It was magical.”

Not a typical path
“I did the traditional path right after high school,” Patton says. A competitive swimmer, he went to college on a swimming scholarship, but after two years, “I got burned out on swimming, which led to too much free time, and that led to many years off.”  
At age 28, he was working a retail job and feeling that “there was no upward progression in my life. I needed some direction.” In April 2002, not long after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 – “obviously that was heavy on my mind” – Patton walked into an Army recruiting office. As an athlete, Patton was used to discipline. “When I stopped swimming, I lost that,” and he thought enlisting would help him regain it. 

“I figured I would talk to a recruiter, get myself turned around,” he says. “I ended up signing up and shipping off to basic training.” What was originally going to be a four-year stint turned into a 20-year career. As it turns out, he laughs, “I was very good at being a soldier.” 
Patton had many different jobs during his time in the Army. “I initially started out in communications in military intelligence,” he says. He had three deployments to the Middle East and later transitioned into public affairs. 

“I got to do a lot of neat stuff with that,” he says. “It was a very varied career.” From training Serbian troops in Belgrade to working with NATO partners to assignments in Moldova, Patton spent very little time in the U.S. It was during his six-year assignment in Germany that Patton met and married his wife. They have two sons together.

Patton even had an assignment with AMB Sports and Entertainment, which owns professional soccer team Atlanta United and the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, during the time Atlanta hosted Super Bowl LIII in 2019. “The idea was to bring some of corporate best practices into the military,” he says. 

Atlanta United would Patton’s first exposure to America’s VetDogs, although he didn’t know it at the time. “VetDogs wasn’t on my radar then, but in retrospect, I remember seeing that after I left, ‘Oh, they got a dog.’” (Puppy Spike was the first Puppy With a Purpose® to be placed with a professional soccer team.) 

Patton finished his Army career with Office of the Chief of Public Affairs at the public affairs center for proponent and educational guidance in Fort Mead, Maryland. “By that point, I was so beat up from my injuries that I was using a cane but had yet to be in a wheelchair,” he says. “I was – I still am – very grateful that I had the right support and the right leaders around that let me finish my career with dignity.” He retired having attained the rank of sergeant first class.

New reality
Patton endured many injuries throughout his Army career, ranging from a coma to knee replacements and nose reconstruction to TBIs (traumatic brain injuries) and PTSD. “Shortly after I retired, I lost the ability to walk,” he says. “I lost my joy.” 
Even though he’s been a full-time wheelchair user for the past couple of years, “I’m still learning the acceptance part of life in a wheelchair,” he says. “I’m determined to walk again.” 

In addition to treatment from the VA, Patton also underwent rehabilitation therapy through UCLA Health’s Operation Mend. As part of his discharge plan from the program, he was asked if he had considered a service dog to help with his disabilities. “I told them yes because I was striving for independence.” The program doesn’t recommend service dog providers, but his healthcare team mentioned that several other patients had spoken highly of America’s VetDogs.

“America’s VetDogs was my top choice because you had the recommendation from a medical team I trusted,” he says. “And I like the idea of [an organization] that was veteran focused.”

He applied, was accepted, and was partnered with service dog Shayne in October 2025. Shayne has been trained to wake Patton if he’s having a nightmare (which Patton says relieves the burden on his wife), open doors for him, and pick items up when he drops them. 

Most importantly, Patton says, “Shayne gives me the permission to have fun in a wheelchair. I know that sounds strange.” He has struggled with how he is perceived by the public as a wheelchair user, “but with Shayne, I couldn’t care less. I’m not thinking about what I look like to other people, it’s just me and him and we’re out there exploring, discovering.”  

A service dog doesn’t just touch one life; it touches many. For Patton, this is true for his entire family. His sons are 13 and 11, “a difficult age just to begin with,” he says, but “when you throw in their dad who’s been in a wheelchair – even though it’s been a couple of years – it’s still new to them.” 

His boys have seen him at his lowest, with no hope, but thanks to Shayne’s presence, “They see Dad with new hope and purpose.” His younger son has written poems and done drawings of Shayne, and the older boy has even taken to joking with his father again. “He allows himself to lose some of that ‘teenager coolness’ when he’s playing with Shayne, and I’m able to connect [with them] a little better.” 

With Shayne by his side, things that used to bother Patton no longer set him off into the “red zone.”   
 

Finding new purpose
Having been a competitive athlete in the past, Patton has reconnected with that part of himself thanks to adaptive sports. He had previously participated in winter adaptive sports programs through the Wounded Warrior Project, but last summer, he attended the Angel City Games for the first time. 

“My favorite adaptive sport is tennis,” he says, but he plays multiple others. Earlier in 2026, he once again attended the Angel City Games. The whole family joined him, including Shayne.  

“I competed in a sanctioned swim event and captured three gold medals,” Patton says. “I also competed in wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball – and even tried my hand at paraclimbing. I was able to relish the surroundings and opportunities. I'm just grateful that Shayne is allowing me the self-permission to persevere and get after life despite so many uncertainties.”

He adds in an email: “With Shayne by my side, I once again believe in the American Dream – anything is possible. That's a feeling I thought was a fading memory until becoming part of the America's VetDogs family.”