If your outgoing dog thrives on attention, you can maximize your bonding time together – and make a profound contribution to your community – by becoming therapy partners. Across the country, these volunteer teams dedicate time to lifting spirits at children’s hospitals, nursing homes, and anywhere else they’re needed.
Patients in pediatrics wards are especially responsive to visits from a therapy dog, as David Frei can attest. You know him as the co-host of the Westminster Kennel Club Show broadcast, but Frei is also renowned for doing pet-assisted therapy with his two Brittany Spaniels, Teigh and Belle, as part of the Angel on a Leash therapy dog program at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, the University Hospital of Columbia-Cornell Medical Center.
"We call it the therapeutic touch, but it’s more than touching," Frei explains. "When Teigh and Belle walk in, the energy in the room changes. Kids smile when they’ve been sad, they talk when they’ve been silent, they think about things other than their own challenges, maybe they even get out of bed or out of their wheelchair to interact with the dog. And that does something for the families and the staff, as well. That’s what this is about. These dogs and others like them are real players in the healing process, and I thank Teigh and Belle every day for letting me be the guy on the other end of the leash."
Delta Society has registered Pet Partners since 1990; its mission is "Improving Human Health through Service and Therapy Animals." That includes mental health: In Eugene, Oregon, Cindy Ehlers of People and Animals Who Serve (PAAWS) helps those suffering from emotional trauma. By her side is her partner, Tikva, a keeshond. In the wake of September 11, 2001, Tikva was a fixture at Ground Zero, bestowing hugs and licking tears from the faces of firefighters, rescue workers, and the bereaved.
In this line of work, size and pedigree don’t matter. A tiny Tibetan Spaniel named Zeke, the top-winning champion Tibbie in history, is certified by St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center of New Jersey, while Bide-A-Wee, a New York animal shelter that also certifies therapy partners, is proud to have graduated a 110-pound formerly stray mutt named Boris, a Rottweiler mix. And the world is on a first-name basis with the most famous therapy partner of all: a certain bull terrier named Rufus, a.k.a. Ch. Rocky Top’s Sundance Kid, who won Westminster in 2006.
All that’s required is a well-trained pet and a compassionate human willing to spend time in exchange for enormous spiritual reward. Says Sue Grundfest of Bide-A-Wee, who volunteers every weekend with her poodle, Coco, "It’s absolutely the most positive, uplifting part of my week."
