The former Farrer student was recently discharged after 20 years in the Armed Forces, serving in both East Timor and Afghanistan, although like countless others when he left he took with him a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“It was triggered by a certain event, and now it can be triggered by lots of things,” Mr Kent said.

“I am an insomniac, but if I do sleep I have nightmares, and I can switch from normal to raging anger in a split second.” 

Late last year his whole life changed again forever, when at a Vets Camp in Glen Innes he was offered an Assistance Dog through the Young Diggers Foundation, a two and a half year old blue eyed Husky hero named Zorro.

“I would never leave the house if I didn’t have Zorro – in fact I wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t have him,” he said.

“I would have been suicidal, but now I have that companionship, and I am responsible for him, he gives me that focus because the Army is an extremely focus driven job.” 

While they are both in training together, and will be for another 12 months, Zorro is slowly helping Mr Kent claw his life back together.

Not only does his new best friend look out for his mental, and physical wellbeing, but he is also helping him rediscover a quality of life that at one stage he thought might have disappeared forever.

“I lost interest in everything I loved doing like music and remote control cars. I couldn’t be in confined spaces or around lots of people – I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” 

These days the Husky is on guard day and night, using a sixth sense, that all dog lovers know, to read Mr Kent’s mental state and predict possible triggers before they happen.

“When I have nightmares he jumps up and lays on my chest to bring me out of them, if I am restless he lays on my legs to calm me down, every night he lays on the bed at the same time to remind me to take my meds” he said.

“When we are out of the house if he doesn’t want to go into a shop, room, or building we don’t go, he can tell if something in there might trigger me.”

“Zorro can always pick up what sort of mood I am in, and whatever that is he stays right there with me.” 

Mr Kent and Zorro are one of “about a half a dozen” returned service men and women in Tamworth who meet at the Oxley Dog Training Club every Sunday to continue training the best weapon they have against PTSD.

“We are hoping to have him fully qualified for the Public Access Test by the end of the year,” Mr Kent said.

“He is still in training – he is learning, but I am learning plenty at the same time.”