BAKER CITY — Bosa the Rottweiler is gnawing on a rawhide bone with crunching, slurping enthusiasm, but his big head swivels, with near metronomic regularity, toward the man sitting in a recliner across the room.

Jason Morgan smiles as he returns Bosa’s glance.

The connection between this man and this dog seems familiar, and in one sense that’s true.

But there is quite a lot more.

Bosa watches Morgan not merely for the customary canine curiosities — the possibility of a walk or a ride in the pickup or a savory snack.

Their bond is more powerful than that of a pet and its master.

It is, literally, a blood relationship.

Bosa, who is 2, is trained to sense a significant increase in Morgan’s heart rate.

The dog can also detect a jolt of adrenaline in Morgan’s system from its scent, hidden from humans with our less acute senses.

When Bosa notices something amiss, he will immediately push his heavy black head and tan muzzle into Morgan’s lap or nudge his waist.

“Before I even know my heart rate is rising,” Morgan, 45, said.

Bosa is a service dog.

His job — although perhaps duty is the more apt word — is to help Morgan, to restore tranquility when the memories breed anxiety and fear.

Bosa’s abilities are “amazing,” said Morgan, a U.S. Navy veteran who served in Iraq during the war and at the military’s detention center for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Morgan, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after his eight-year Navy career ended in 2010, no longer needs medication except one.

After many years when he avoided going out in public, Morgan, who grew up in Baker County, now goes grocery shopping, or decides to have dinner at a restaurant, without trepidation.

And always with Bosa at his side.

“I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference,” he said. “I was very surprised.”

Motivated to serve America

Morgan graduated from Burnt River High School in Unity in 1997 and then took a job with the U.S. Forest Service.

The terrorist attacks that will forever mark Sept. 11, 2001, in America’s history affected Morgan as they did everyone old enough to recognize the significance.

But its effect on Morgan was more acute.

“I wanted to do my part,” Morgan said.

He talked with a Navy recruiter but was skeptical.

“I don’t want to be on a boat,” he said with a laugh.

Then Morgan learned about the Seabees.

That’s the nickname for Navy construction battalions (Seabee derives from the “CB” in the official name), who build operating bases, airfields and much else.

Morgan learned to operate heavy equipment, eventually specializing in cranes.

In 2003 he deployed to Iraq. It was the first year of the Second Gulf War.

Morgan served a second tour in Iraq in 2005.

Three years later he was stationed at Guantanamo Bay.

Morgan deflects questions about his wartime service, saying that he “worked with some pretty incredible guys.”

He said he did go on occasional convoys in Iraq — operations that occasionally encountered roadside bombs or ambushes.

“It was a high-adrenaline situation,” Morgan said. “It’s hard to describe. Always waiting for something to happen. High stress.”

But Morgan said that for many years after he left the Navy, he didn’t consider, or even understand, the lingering psychological effects of his service.

He moved to Walla Walla, Washington, and operated cranes for the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that builds and maintains dams.

Eventually, though, his wife (they later divorced) noticed that Morgan would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, sweating.

Around 2020 he consulted a private doctor who is also a veteran and recognized the symptoms of PTSD.

Morgan said he was prescribed multiple medications.

Although the drugs treated his anxiety, he said they also left him feeling “numb.”

He didn’t enjoy even the positive parts of life while taking the prescriptions.

“I didn’t like that,” he said.

A year or so later, a doctor mentioned service dogs, and specifically an organization called Service Peace Warriors based near the Tri-Cities, Washington.

“I googled it,” Morgan said.

He was intrigued.

In January 2022 Morgan first took into his arms a black-and-tan bundle of warmth named Bosa.

“It was kind of an instant bond.”

Intense training

The interview and training process at Service Peace Warriors was intense, Morgan said — for man and for dog.

Bosa underwent six months of training to ensure that he had the proper personality and the ability to learn how to focus on his partner no matter the distractions.

“Lots of pups don’t make the cut — maybe only four in 10 are service dogs,” Morgan said.

For four months Morgan and Bosa trained together, along with seven other veterans and their dogs.

The pairs went to malls and other bustling public places.

They took the dogs on escalators and through food courts and in a host of other settings, all with the goal of ensuring that the dog was suited for this rigorous duty.

Morgan grins as he talks about Bosa.

“He graduated early.”

Mary Mattox founded Service Peace Warriors in 2015. The organization placed its first service dog in 2017.

On the organization’s website —servicepeacewarriors.org/ — Mattox writes that she was motivated in part by reading a statistic about the number of veterans who were completing suicide — about 24 per day on average.

Mattox has more than 30 years of dog training experience, starting with her dogs in New Zealand.

Back to Baker County

In October 2023, Morgan returned to Baker County.

Bosa, of course, moved with him into a home in Baker City.

Morgan had taken a medical retirement from the Corps of Engineers due to scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that causes skin and tissue inflammation.

Although he understands that some people he meets in stores and other businesses are initially surprised to see a Rottweiler, Morgan said everyone he has encountered, once they learn about service dogs and their purpose, has been “very supportive.”

“Baker has been great, not that I was expecting anything different,” he said.

Morgan said he has had pleasant conversations, including with other veterans, prompted by Bosa’s presence.

At home, he said, Bosa generally acts like any other pet — other than his honed ability to recognize when Morgan might be feeling anxious.

“He’s just a dog and a knucklehead without that vest,” Morgan said with a chuckle.

The vest, which Morgan straps around Bosa’s chest before they visit a public place, identifies the Rottweiler as a working dog, one entitled by law to accompany Morgan where other dogs can’t go.

Clad in the vest, Bosa is a different dog, Morgan said.

Not unfriendly, to be sure.

But Bosa understands that when he’s wearing the garment, he is on duty.

“Once that vest goes on, his focus is on me,” Morgan said.

Bosa’s presence is reassuring not only because he can alert Morgan when he might start feeling uneasy.

Morgan said Bosa also helps distract him.

Even though Morgan has absolute trust that Bosa will act appropriately in public, he said he always pays close attention to the dog, which keeps his attention on something other than his own feelings.

“Just the comfort of him being there,” Morgan said.

Although Morgan said he had multiple dogs as pets while growing up, his relationship with Bosa is decidedly different.

They are together almost constantly.

“He goes with me everywhere,” Morgan said.

Including to Washington for the periodic checkup that Service Peace Warriors requires.

For the first two years, Morgan said, the visits are every six months. Thereafter it’s an annual requirement.

He said trainers make sure Bosa still meets the strict standards — including staying still for 45 minutes even after Morgan has walked away.

Morgan has complete confidence in Bosa.

“He’ll be with me forever,” he said.

Forever, of course, is quite a different concept with dogs than with people.

Shorter.

But Morgan uses the word, with its connotations of permanence, purposefully.

“Even if he has to retire, I’ll keep him,” he said.

“We’re kind of attached at the hip.”