The Southern Charm Gang

K-9 Therapists on Duty

by M. Suzanne Sims

Saturday morning dawned bright and early. Even though the morning routine was pretty much the same, the dogs seemed to know this morning was special. Excitement was in the air, their eyes bright, smiles wide. After breakfast, everyone was brushed, nails checked and dressed. Dogs, you say, dressed? Well, of course. After all, it IS pet therapy day!

As we leave the house, the dogs are smiling, each sporting a neat, colorful hat. Adam, an Australian Shepherd, and Sissy, a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier mix, are wearing their matching Warner Brothers cartoon dog and fire hydrant hats that Santa brought them. Casey is wearing his jalapeno visor, strutting his stuff with that Bouvier des Flandres pride. LOAD UP! is a favorite command in our house and is promptly followed by a race to everyone's seat in the truck.

The trip to the rehabilitation center is filled with excitement, for both owners and dogs alike. We are used to the smiles and pointing toward our truck now as we make our journey. As we pull up to the center, the dogs are up and wagging furiously. Everyone exits on lead to the "potty" area and on command, takes care of business. As we venture through the automatic doors, their smiles are wide and the tails are still going. People are looking, staring and many are smiling at these dogs, obviously so happy to be here.

The recreational therapist meets us in the lobby and the dogs all greet her happily. They are thrilled to see her. We make our way to the elevator and to the fourth floor. As we step off the elevator, the dogs immediately turn south, to the activity room where we always meet with the patients. Before we even enter the room, we can see some of the patient's faces light up. Here, we see many patients who are recovering from various injuries and conditions such as stroke and brain injuries resulting from automobile accidents. While many of the patients we see are able to speak, smile and move, there are almost always a few patients who have no control of their body movements. Many of these patients have not even had an emotion cross their face, must less be able to move a limb or move their lips to speak.

The recreational therapist introduces Greg, the dogs, and me, handing the program over to me. I tell them a little bit about my training background and what I do for a living. In introducing each of the dogs, I give the patients some background information on how old the dogs are, what breed they are, what each breed originated for, and how they each became a part of our family. Then we do tricks with each of the dogs which is a big hit, especially when the dogs "wave" to everyone. Each of the dogs have their own special tricks as well. Adam's favorite trick is his "article indication," which isn't really a trick. This is something I taught Adam in preparation for our dream of working in search and rescue one day. I use a glove and throw it out on the floor. Once I have thrown the glove out, I tell Adam, FIND IT!. Adam races to the glove, touches it with his nose, turns around, sits and looks at me. Adam learned those five steps in less than 60 seconds with the use of a clicker. Sissy does a cute BEG PRETTY! trick and the patients love to see her FIND IT!. Another favorite is when I place a piece of food on the floor and the dogs wait until I tell them OK! to eat the food. Casey’s favorite trick is something we taught him by accident. We teach all of our dogs the RELAX! command. This is where the dog lies on his side, totally relaxed. We use this for nail trimming and grooming. Somehow, we used a hand signal with Casey in teaching him RELAX! and he picked up on this. So, we have taken it one step further, and now give him the BANG! command. He flops over on his side and a few seconds later, I say COME ALIVE! and with that Bouvier exuberance, Casey rushes up to me. This is a BIG hit with the patients.

After the tricks, the real fun begins when Greg and I take each of the dogs around, one at a time, for the patients to visit with, pet and love on. I always warn everyone that Adam loves to kiss naked toes and everyone gets a chuckle out of that. I also let them know that they can just tell me if they do not want to pet the dogs. Some prefer only to watch.

Sissy, being a typical Terrier, prisses here, grins there and is more like a little jester. She has a winning way about her that keeps everyone smiling. Her nice wide smile greets each of the patients and she flits here and there, making sure everyone gets at least a second of her valuable time! She just has a good time, wherever she is.

Then, there is Adam. Adam was adopted from a shelter. His previous owners moved out of state and left him. Someone in Adam's past had abused him, but somehow he kept his faith in humans. I believe God placed Adam on this earth for pet therapy work. Although Sissy was the first dog I adopted as an adult, Adam is why I researched and became involved in pet therapy work. Adam seems to know when a gentle kiss is needed or when just a paw on the patient's knee is all that patient can handle. He walks into the room and seems to size everyone up. While each of the dogs have their share of small miracles with patients, Adam seems to be able to bring flickers of emotion or limb movement each time we visit a facility. These visits are extremely emotional for me and I have to concentrate on what we are doing so that I do not become emotional during the visit. I can remember one patient who did not want to do anything with Adam except look at him. He did not want to pet him or touch him in any way. Before we left that day, he was actually hugging Adam. The huge smile on this man's face said it all. Adam's love for people and his unselfishness helps him to help others. Those intelligent amber eyes know the patients immediately and I believe they know him. It is as they are sharing their souls with one another.

Casey's size alone makes a real impression and his Bouvier bounce gets lots of OOH’s and AH’s. Casey has had his own successes with the patients, even at his young age. Casey began making pet therapy visits around the age of 15 weeks. At that time we limited his visits due to his age, but he loved going and visiting all of the nice people. As Casey began to grow up, his visits became more frequent. During one of our visits when Casey was about a year old, we had a patient who had had a stroke and his movement was very limited. Normally Adam is able to get some kind of response from these patients, but not this day. Casey’s turn was last, and when I took him to see this particular patient, the patient actually reached out for Casey to come closer. I took him closer and you could see the patient’s eyes shining. Casey sidled up to this man, and had the man been able to have smiled, he would have been beaming. There was no mistake in his eyes, however. They were as bright as they could be. He moved his hand to Casey’s back and loved on him. Casey just stayed right by this man and grinned at me.

Since I work full time, I am not able to dedicate as much time to pet therapy visits as I would like. We try to visit two facilities at least once a month; a rehabilitation center and an Alzheimer's unit. We have also visited a home for abused children and a local retirement home. Once a year I organize a group of people and dogs to visit four facilities on the Saturday before Christmas. We call ourselves K-9 Therapists of Mississippi. This idea originated about three years ago as I was thinking of all of the patients and residents who would be without family during the holidays. I wanted to do something to make the holidays brighter and K-9 Therapists of Mississippi was born! The group makes a day of it, having a picnic lunch by a local lake. We take agility equipment and have all of the dogs demonstrate their skills! Afterwards, we do tricks and visit with each patient. We have had media coverage each year and the residents love being the center of attention.

Casey is also very popular at the Alzheimer’s unit we visit. They love to see "the big black dog" come for a visit. Most of the residents are big dog lovers and truly enjoy seeing each of our dogs. Visiting with our dogs seems to trigger fond memories for these residents and they share memories of their own dogs they grew up with. One of the residents had owned a Bouvier and upon first meeting Casey, immediately knew what breed he was. She shared her memories of her Bouvier who was so important to her.

People are always asking me what training is needed for a therapy dog. As a certified CGC evaluator for Therapy Dog International, I always tell people there are only two requirements for a therapy dog. The dog has to be basic obedience trained, which includes listening and obeying the owner, and the dog has to LOVE people. A therapy dog needs to be confident and able to adapt to all kinds of situations such as loud noises. This is where really socializing a dog comes into play. The dogs do count on you, however, to make sure patients don't squeeze too hard or grab them. We have not trained our dogs to do therapy work. However, as responsible pet owners we have obedience trained each of our dogs. They know to listen to us and are well behaved. And do they ever love people!

Working with patients can be very emotional and stressful for owners and dogs. We watch each of our dogs to make sure they are not showing signs of stress. During our five years of pet therapy work, I have found one situation Adam has a real problem with. If we visit a nursing home, we have to work with the patients in a group setting. He really stresses if we visit people who are gravely ill and bedridden. I can only guess Adam senses death. He can barely walk down the hall where these patients are located.

I suppose the most emotional visit for me was with a woman we visited at the rehabilitation center. She had no control of her movements. She had not smiled, nor had she been able to move her limbs since she had been at the rehabilitation center. She was one of the newer patients. The recreational therapist was sitting beside this patient during our visit. When we began visiting the patients individually, we started on the opposite side of the room from this particular patient. As we walked up to her, Adam popped his head up to the tray on her chair to say hello. This patient picked her arm up and reached for Adam. I heard the therapist gasp. I picked Adam up and helped him place his front feet on the tray. She reached for him and petted his front legs. I avoided tearing up, just barely. Adam just looked at me, giving me that great big Aussie grin as if to say, ‘I helped her, Mom!’. These moments are why pet therapy is so special to me. While pet therapy does not cure patients of these illnesses and conditions, Adam was able to help this patient take a first step on her long, difficult journey towards recovery.

The greatest joy is seeing patients who arrive in this condition, walk out and hear them tell you goodbye and tell the dogs, ‘I love you’. After all, isn't that what it is all about? Sharing our time, encouragement, and love with those facing terrific journeys and hardships is something we plan on doing for a very long time.

M. Suzanne Sims is a Technology Consultant in Jackson, Mississippi. She has conducted house bunny seminars, taken pet photos with Santa, as well as weekly photos for the state newspaper featuring a homeless pet at a local humane society. In her spare time, she trains in obedience, agility and herding, does pet therapy work, is a Therapy Dog International certified CGC evaluator, and offers assistance with pet behavioral problems.   She also serves as webmaster for the American Bouvier des Flandres Club and the Jackson Obedience Training Club.

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