New Therapy Dog

The UW Oshkosh Counseling Center has a new therapy dog, a rescued 4.5-year-old Lhasa Apso named Leo.
Counseling Center Director Sandra Cox, who owns Leo, said therapy dogs have been at the center for approximately eight years.

“A therapy dog in the Counseling Center is important as they provide comfort and care in a way that humans sometimes cannot do,” Cox said. “People will often receive comfort more from an animal than they will from humans due to their unconditional positive regard towards others.”

Cox said that since Leo’s introduction to the center in January, he’s been adapting great to his new environment.

“He loves people, so we are still working on the calm meet-and-greet because his love is exuberant, all 12 pounds of him,” Cox said. “He is happy to sit and give comfort and he is also happy to show you his favorite toys, which, lately, has been Sheepy.”

Cox said she’s had her dog be the therapy dog for UWO and her last campus for over nine years now.

“The positive impact [of] having a therapy dog in the center has been so overwhelming, I want to continue to offer the experience wherever I go,” Cox said. “I have always rescued my dogs and I go with my intuition of a dog that seems to also be intuitive and loving with humans.”

Cox said the previous therapy dog, Annie, who passed away last August due to cancer, was at the Counseling Center for five and a half years.

“She was my fur family and she came with me to UWO,” Cox said. “Leo and Annie have both helped students through some of the most distressing moments in their lives. They are also just pure sunshine that brings a smile to everyone’s face, which is always positive.”

Cox said students have been overwhelmingly positive about the presence of a therapy dog on campus.

“We are also sure to provide guidelines for students who may be allergic and/or fearful as well,” Cox said. “It has been a bonus that Annie was loving with humans, and Leo is really funny and joyful as well.”

Cox said Leo doesn’t have any set hours yet because he goes along with her schedule.

“We are usually out walking campus at lunchtime,” Cox said. “Clients of the Counseling Center are also welcome to talk with their counselor about scheduling Leo time.”

The Counseling Center is located on the second floor of the Student Success Center and is open 7:45 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Improving Your Pets

We all love our pets and their well-being is of the utmost importance. The precious bond between humans and dogs is especially unique – dogs provide unconditional love through all of life’s ups and downs, and in return we do all we can to keep them happy and healthy.

But pet well-being goes beyond proper food and exercise. That’s why Merck Animal Health is bringing you the BRAVECTO Cares program which focuses on overall wellness and the many different ways to keep dogs healthy.

In addition to supporting day-to-day pet health, this program is also helping to support NEADS, an organization that trains world class service dogs for people living with disabilities.

On Thursday, Dr. Mark Pelham, DVM and major in the U.S. Army’s Veterinary Corps joined NewsChannel 7 at 4, to talk about preventative care and maintaining wellness so dogs can stay happy and healthy.

Dr. Pelham was joined by Becca Hill, a NEADS service dog trainer, who talked about the unique needs of service dogs and how they must be in good health to do their jobs every day. Together they can shared valuable information and tips for all canines – from new household pets to highly trained service dogs.

Emotional Support Dog

One family’s tragedy turned into a blessing for not only the special needs students at Sunnyslope Elementary School, but for virtually every student fortunate enough to meet Perla, a five-year-old English Labrador retriever. Principal Joe Rivas said the dog’s demeanor and professional training as a service animal can calm any kid down in seconds.

Perla—also known as Perl—spent four years as a companion to Grant Burillo since he was six years old and a student at Escuela Bilingue International in Emeryville. Grant died in a boating accident in September 2019.

Rose Burillo, Grant’s mother, said Perla became stressed when she was no longer working with her son or going to school. Burillo contacted Monkey Tail Ranch, where the dog was born and trained, to determine the best course of action. They decided Perla needed to go back to work.

Since Feb. 27, Perla has been at Sunnyslope Elementary School in Hollister. On March 10, Burillo came to the school to see how Perla was fitting in. As it turned out, Perla has been more than a curiosity to the children; she has been an emotional life saver.

“It was a hard decision to make, as losing Perla was another loss,” Burillo said. “However, being able to see Perla and meet her new owner [Rivas] and her new community was a beautiful moment for me. It is hard to let Perla go, as I have lost so much.”

Burillo spoke of how Perla was able to calm Grant during anxious moments, acting as a buffer in stressful situations.

“Perla also allowed Grant to be more independent and helped him feel safe at night,” she said. “She learned to apply deep pressure on him when he was anxious and could easily redirect him. I know Grant would want Perla to continue to work and to be with other kids. Being able to see firsthand the love Sunnyslope has for Perla confirmed I made the right decision.”

Principal Rivas told BenitoLink that Perla came to his home Jan. 21. Before bringing the dog to campus, Rivas was trained on how to work with her.

“She knows everything,” Rivas said. “I had to be trained on the commands, and we did some testing at Target and some in the neighborhood. And then she came to the campus.”

Rivas described Perla as a “repurposed service dog, who is now an emotional support facilities therapy dog” to help children who have suffered any type of trauma, “or general education kids who are just having a rough day.”

“She knows how to make students feel better,” he said, adding that Perla is so mellow that he’s the one who gets nervous when students rush up and surround her. He said when he brings Perla out to the playground, children beg to walk her.

“She’s trained to go with other students to provide that emotional support,” he said. “She’ll walk with any student at any time.”

When not walking around the playground or being with one of the students during an emotional time, Perla stays in Rivas’ office, where students seemingly just happen to drop in and end up petting her. At home, Rivas said Perla magically transforms.

“She’s a completely different dog,” he said. “When her vest comes off, she’s a dog. She’s a little more excitable, runs in circles.”

While Rivas spoke with BenitoLink, students continually came up to pet Perla and ask if they could walk her. Perla is so popular, she even has her own Instagram account.

“She loves coming to the school,” Rivas said. “On weekends, when we’re home, I believe she misses being here. When I walk her here, she almost dives towards the kids, even if there’s a huge crowd, just to get petted and loved. She lives for this.”

Rivas said that after the boating accident, Burillo returned Perla to Monkey Tail Ranch, where she stayed for a few months. He said she was offered first to the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office and then San Benito High School.

“It sort of trickled down to us, and I asked Hollister School District Superintendent Diego Ochoa and let him know we had this opportunity for a facilities support dog and he said ‘let’s do it,’” Rivas said. “Now she’s working with our students. She’s calm and doing great.”

When Burillo showed up at Sunnyslope Elementary on March 10, it was obvious that Perla remembered her as she ran to see her former owner. It was both a happy and sad reunion.

Burillo and Rivas, along with Tim and Elise Houweling from Monkey Tail Ranch, took Perla to a classroom where many of the students had met the dog before, yet couldn’t resist reaching out to touch her as Burillo led her between their desks.

Tim Houweling told the students that before coming to the school, Perla once helped another little boy named Grant. He told them how Perla went to school with Grant every day.

“Grant’s no longer with us,” he told the class, “but we have Perl here, and she loved kids so much we had to find her another job. We know from Mr. Rivas this is Perl’s favorite thing. Thank you for giving her all the pets she needs, because that’s what she works for, the attention and your love.”

Hero Dog Award

Two-Legged Dog

Martín García Cartagena recently completed his doctorate degree and believes he wouldn’t have been able to do it without his beloved, two-legged dog, Chicha, by his side.

“I couldn’t do a lot of things without her,” the 36-year-old says.

García Cartagena moved to New Zealand from Uruguay nearly five years ago to start his PhD in resource and environmental planning through Massey University, and based his decision to move here on where would be best for Chicha.

It was never an option to leave her behind. García Cartagena found Chicha as an abandoned puppy in Uruguay about eight years ago and not long after she was hit by a truck, displacing vertebrae in her spinal cord and paralysing her back legs.

Chicha needed expensive surgery and García Cartagena was concerned she wouldn’t have the same quality of life.

“The vet said ‘she will have the same quality of life but it’ll take you a bit more work to help her get that’.”

Six months after the accident, and after surgery and multiple X-rays and tests, Chicha was able to walk again with the help of a cart and wheels.

It was a long and expensive process to bring her to New Zealand, but well worth it, he says.

They now live in Okato, Taranaki where Chicha has developed a bit of fan club.

When Covid-19 hit and García Cartagena decided he and Chicha would lockdown with his partner in another town, Okato residents worried something had happened to them.

In the conclusion of his thesis, on community resilience in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes, García Cartagena penned a touching tribute to Chicha.

“I would like to express my eternal debt of gratitude to Chicha. I would not be who I am, I would not be where I am, and I would have definitely not have completed this PhD if it wasn’t for her and her way of teaching me on a daily basis that everything and anything is possible with love, commitment, and hard work.”

García Cartagena did not get Chicha specifically as an emotional support animal but increasingly dogs are being trained for these purposes.

Wendy Isaacs, owner of Therapy Dogs New Zealand, trains emotional therapy dogs to help people with things like grief, terminal illness, mental illness, and children with autism.

Isaacs says dogs often end up providing emotional support for the owner, offering companionship and motivation.

“While he’s writing his thesis, which can be a lonely place to be at a desk, just having that dog to come in the room and pop their head on your lap is enough to lift your spirits and get on to the next chapter.”

Isaacs uses labradoodles as they are hypoallergenic so people who are allergic to dogs can still have one, and they also have ideal traits such as being affectionate, loyal, and calm.

“They have to be confident with whatever is thrown their way, which could be kids vocalising with autism, and they have to get used to meltdowns which can be loud.

“Their job is to run towards crying and any noises kids make, and we turn it into a game.”

Up until two years ago, New Zealand didn’t have therapy dogs, there were only support dogs available for the blind, deaf, and epileptic.

But Isaacs says since they have become available, there has been a surge in interest.

Post-Covid, enquiries to her business have doubled and are continuing to increase.

A therapy dog costs $13,000, but she says a lot of it can be funded through Lottery Grants and other trusts, as well as Givealittle.

“They feel so much safer with a dog and feel like they can do it with a dog, but they couldn’t do it on their own.”

Patrick Neilands, a PhD student from the University of Auckland, wrote his thesis around dog’s social cognition and how they navigate social situations with humans.

Neilands says dogs’ relationships with humans make them unique among animals.

Part of that bond is due to eye contact, Neilands says.

He says humans engage in a lot of mutual eye gaze whereas in most other species it’s considered a threatening gesture however, dogs can stare into their owners eyes for quite a long time.

Neilands says a study called this ‘eye gaze oxytocin’ and showed when the dog stares in your eyes you get a dose of oxytocin, often referred to as the ‘love hormone’.

“As a dog owner I am aware it adds to my wellbeing, whether that is measured in terms of decreased blood pressure or decreased stress levels, I couldn’t tell you.

“But I know that with my dog back home in Ireland I miss her, and she improves my quality of life, even though it’s hard to measure that.”

Therapy Dogs Virtual Volunteering

An English mastiff named Duke doesn’t understand social distancing. The 3-year-old dog is used to volunteering nearly every day at schools and assisted living facilities as a therapy dog with his handler, Tiger Maynard-White.

“He loves people,” Maynard-White, 56, told TODAY. “He is the biggest baby.”

The New London, Connecticut-based team has volunteered for the past two years with the nonprofit Pet Partners, spreading comfort and cheer in their community. Maynard-White said they both miss offering face-to-face visits; she’s particularly worried about senior citizens in nursing homes who are unable to visit with their families during the coronavirus pandemic.

“That’s why I came up with the idea of window-to-window visits,” she said. Duke visits residents at Harbor Village Rehabilitation and Nursing Center — from outside. Though residents can’t run their fingers through his fur, they still light up in delight while peering out the windows at the happy dog. Maynard-White waves a sign that reads, “Duke sends his love.”

On one visit, a typically withdrawn woman urged a member of the staff to help her rise from her wheelchair to get a closer look. Others pressed their hands to the window in gratitude.

“Each of our hands are touching both sides of the windows,” she said. “I was in tears.”

Volunteer therapy dog teams across the country are finding creative ways to spread comfort in these unprecedented times when stress, isolation and anxiety are on the rise.

Elisabeth Van Every, communications and outreach coordinator at Pet Partners, which currently has around 13,000 registered therapy animal teams across America and abroad, said she is not surprised.

“Most of our volunteers really love what they do,” she told TODAY. “They find it very rewarding to be able to share their pets with people who can benefit, and to see the difference they’re making in people’s lives.”

Some teams are holding video chats with students or hospital patients; others are sharing daily photos on social media. Since therapy animals can’t currently promote children’s literacy with visits at classrooms and libraries, Pet Partners plans to launch a “Read With Me” initiative soon.

“We are going to be asking kids to read to their pets at home and share photos or videos of that with us so that we can make sure they’re still maintaining that connection and those opportunities to read,” she said. “We’re glad we have an opportunity to do that thanks to the available technology.”

Jill Baker, 59, works at the University of South Florida Health Libraries. Her golden retriever, Snitch, a Pet Partners therapy dog, is the Library Ambassador and has been a hit with students since she started volunteering in 2014.

Now that medical students are working remotely and potentially feeling additional anxiety about their chosen field, Snitch is helping remind them of ways to access the journals and data they need in social media posts and on the library website. She’s also appearing in cute photos to offer stress relief. “I’m a reluctant social media poster, but this has kicked us into gear,” Baker told TODAY. “We’re going to post a picture on her page every day.”

Cincinnati resident Nan Williams, 57, has been texting photos of her therapy dog, Gus, to a physical therapist to share with patients at a rehabilitation facility they visited before Ohio’s “stay at home” order. She’s also pulling together photos for the staff break room.

“People that are so stressed right now; they could use a little Gus love,” she told TODAY. Volunteers at other therapy animal nonprofits are also trying to find ways to “visit” remotely. Judy Bailey, 59, visited hospitals and nursing homes in and around DeRidder, Louisiana, over 400 times with her mixed-breed dog, Blue, through the nonprofit Alliance of Therapy Dogs. Now she texts photos to activities leaders at several facilities for them to share.

“I’ve put little messages that, ‘Blue really loves you,’ and ‘Blue is waving hello,’” she told TODAY. “I’ll let them know, ‘We’re doing great. We really miss you. We hope we get to see you soon.’”

Deborah Snyder, 55, co-founder of the Miami-based Heel 2 Heal Therapy Dogs, said the “current challenging environment” motivated the group to pivot to sharing online messages from pets about staying safe and healthy during the new reality facing Americans.

Posts include support for flattening the curve, appreciation for medical teams, first responders, sanitation workers and employees at grocery stores, pharmacies and restaurants, and positive messages like, “We will get through this together.”

“We truly want to be part of the solution by spreading information bundled in puppy smiles and tail wags,” she told TODAY in an email.

As one recent post read, “Be kind, stay home and be safe!”

49ers Frenchie

Zoë is the NFL’s first emotional support dog. The smallest 49er offers a big assist to players and staff alike at Levi’s Stadium.

The one-year-old French bulldog spends most of her time in the player engagement office where the team can visit her between practices and before and after games. She is working this week, leading up the big NFC Divisional Playoff at Levi Stadium on Saturday.

The Niners are the first team in the NFL to have a registered emotional support pooch.

Zoë’s talents are many: they include an irresistible charm, the ability to carry a ball quite a long distances without fumbling, an uncanny technique of relaxing her big teammates, and an Instagram account that features many famous Niners cuddling with her.

Program For Service Dogs

Puppies Behind Bars (PBB) founder and president, Gloria Gilbert Stoga, created a program that trains prison inmates to raise service dogs for wounded war veterans and first responders. Additionally, the organization trains dogs to become explosive-detection canines for law enforcement. Today, PBB operates throughout six correctional facilities in New York and New Jersey and has raised more than 1,200 dogs. PBB has earned its thirteenth consecutive 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, which indicates that the organization adheres to good governance and other best practices.

When Stoga first opened her organization over 20-years ago, she decided to breed her own Labrador retriever puppies. That decision came from wanting to provide canines that had the best genetic backgrounds and temperaments. All of the dogs enter the program at eight weeks old. Due to the high standards of the program, if a dog is released for either behavioral or physical reasons, the dog is put up for adoption. The explosive detection canine puppies are placed into a one-year program, while the service dog puppies participate in a two-year program.

“They live in the cells with the inmates,” Stoga explains. “The inmates are fully responsible for all of the training, the nurturing, the basic medical, the grooming, and once a week PBB staff goes into each prison for a full day of teaching classes and helps solve problems.” Before starting PBB in 1997, Stoga served as a member of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Youth Empowerment Commission, whose mission was to secure private-sector summer employment for New York City’s underprivileged youth. She was responsible for developing and securing corporate commitments to provide training and jobs under the Commission’s initiative. Working for non-profits allowed Stoga to figure out how she wanted to operate her organization when it came time. The initial spark that inspired her to start PBB came after reading an article about Dr. Thomas Lane, a veterinarian running a prison guide-dog program in Gainesville, Florida. She subsequently had the privilege of visiting Dr. Lane and spoke with inmates and program staff in three prisons that hosted his program.

Six months later, she quit her job and approached Libby Pataki, who was then the First Lady of New York State. She immediately garnered Pataki’s support to provide education and rehabilitation for prison inmates and provide excellent quality working dogs for the public. Late 1997, she started her program with five Labrador retriever puppies at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, New York State’s only maximum-security prison for women.

In the beginning, Stoga and her team faced challenges with the unions and was not welcomed at her second prison opening, a men’s medium-security prison. “I wasn’t welcomed by security staff,” she shares. “To show them that I wasn’t just a well-meaning lady from New York City who was coming upstate to say, ‘you should give these inmates something positive to do,’ I went into that prison every single day, Monday through Friday for six weeks. I’d run to the women’s prison for half a day, three days a week, and I’d come back. For six weeks, I more or less lived in that prison…Very slowly, I start talking to some of the corrections officers. I’d always bring my two dogs in, and they’d see how well behaved they were, how friendly they were. I got across to people that I was serious, that the dogs were of high quality and that I wasn’t going anywhere.”

PBB has become a goal for prison inmates. Although the program is volunteer-based on top of the inmates’ mandatory prison job, it does not accept everyone. Stoga does not interview sex offenders, anybody with direct child abuse or animal abuse or anyone with a high mental health issue. Additionally, the inmates have to be ticket free for 12-months meaning that they haven’t received any form of disciplinary action in a year. Having something to strive for keeps the inmates focused on the goal.

“You see people [inmates] change literally before your eyes,” Stoga smiles. “The other end of the spectrum is our [canine] recipients. We work with veterans. We also work with first responders, and to hear from our recipients and their families that they cut way back on their meds, or maybe they’re now med free, that they now go out in public or that they now engage with their families is incredible.”

As Stoga continues to grow the organization, she focuses on the following essential steps:

Clearly define your purpose and what you want to do. If you start to veer away from that, you will stretch yourself thin mentally, emotionally and financially, which will not lead to long-term success.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Being honest when you don’t know something will garner better results than faking your way through; it may hurt you in the long run.

Be prepared to work hard, especially when pivoting. You will work harder than you ever have before. You have to give it your all if you want to achieve your goal.

“When I first started working in prisons,” Stoga concludes, “I was totally completely black and white. There were good guys in the world and there were bad guys. That was that. Very soon on, the inmates taught me there’s gray; that people can do bad things, but they’re not necessarily bad people forever. There are some bad people forever; I’m not naïve. However, some people are gray.”

Top Dog

So much so, they’ve entered him in the Riverine Herald’s Top Dog competition – before entries close tomorrow – in the hope that the public shares their opinion.

Therapy Dogs At Schools

Therapy dogs have become popular in nursing homes, hospitals, funeral homes and schools. Some schools in the area have decided to add a therapy dog program to help students educationally and emotionally.

A therapy dog is trained differently than a service dog or an emotional support dog. Therapy dogs do not require specialized training but must be sociable and have basic manners. Before a dog can be certified as a therapy dog, the owner and dog must go through assessments.

Bark River-Harris, Escanaba, Manistique and Mid Peninsula schools currently have one or more therapy dogs.

Bark River-Harris’ Guidance Counselor Jan Hood owns Dixie, a labradoodle just over one year old. Dixie is not fully trained yet, but Hood already sees many times where Dixie steps into a situation and defuses it.

“She’s not in any kind of special training other than obedience training,” said Hood. “But I’ve seen some very unique things happen that she wasn’t trained for, it just happened. Two little girls were sobbing and she literally crawled up on their lap. A little boy was sick and Dixie walked up to him and rested his head on the student’s lap.”

Therapy dogs provide many benefits. They teach empathy and appropriate interpersonal skills and help students develop social skills. Students who work with therapy dogs have experienced increased motivation for learning.

The Escanaba School District has three therapy dogs, one at the Webster Kindergarten Center (Sparky), Lemmer Elementary (Physics), and the Upper Elementary (Camo). Teachers and administrators have seen first-hand the effects a dog can have on kids.

“I started bringing Sparky with me last year. He was a very calming force for the students I was working with,” said Webster’s Behavioral Interventionist Alycia Chernick.

Chernick owns Sparky, an 11 year old black labrador retriever who attends school Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Physics, a Bernedoodle in Lemmer Elementary, is cared for by school Social Worker Jennifer Reynolds. Physics is about a year and a half old and a cross between a Bernese Mountain dog and poodle. Physics recently earned his Canine Good Citizen Certificate from the American Kennel Club.

“He’s eager to go to school every single morning,” said Reynolds.

Therapy dogs support students with social and emotional learning needs, which assist with literacy development. Lemmer Principal Matt Johson-Reeves said Physics is helping students with anger issues, anxiety, stress and general emotional health problems.

“Students who are poor readers sometimes have anxiety about reading aloud. Dogs like Physics are a non-judgmental listening ear for them and the more they can read aloud, the better their fluency,” said Reeves.

Camo, a seven year old labrador retriever, started attending the Upper Elementary in September. Fourth grade teacher Randi Wender brings Camo to school Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week.

“After implementing the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” in our schools last year, I truly believe that a dog embodies and owns these habits. Camo will be a welcoming presence in our school, as well as a leader by example,” Wender said.

Mid Peninsula’s therapy dog, Charlie, is a rescue dog. Title I teacher Mandi Lippens fostered Charlie and her puppies and found Charlie had the sweetest demeanor and decided to keep her. Lippens had a student that could not test when reading aloud. She researched how therapy animals can help students feel more comfortable reading when reading to a dog. Lippens asked Superintendent Eric VanDamme if she could bring in Charlie and see if the student would test better.

“The student not only read to Charlie, but she doubled her score that I had from the previous time. She read the page I had given her and she asked for more,” said Lippens. “It was a night and day difference from the student I had a day before.”

Lippens says since having Charlie in the school students read more. VanDamme’s son was shy and wouldn’t read out-loud, but now he will.

Research shows therapy dogs affect students in schools by increasing their confidence and improved motivation. Charlie, like the other therapy animals, comfort students when needed.

“She seems to understand, or know … we had a student yesterday who’s mom isn’t here this Christmas and so she was crying and upset, everyone was talking about all this family time, and mom and dad, Santa, … she had a meltdown. She’s in first grade,” said Lippens.

The teacher brought the student to Lippens office where the first grader told Charlie all her problems and then went back to her class.

“There’s so much more than just the reading that I feel is happening here,” Lippens said.

Lippens has a veterinarian background and understands how important it is for Charlie to have her own area to go to when she wants to.

“It’s nice to provide an animal a spot that they can go to if they need to,” said Lippens. “She’s still an animal … she likes her kennel, it’s her space. The kids know when she’s in her kennel, that’s her area. Students can pet her in her kennel, but no one is supposed to be in the kennel with her.”

Manistique Elementary has had a therapy dog program for 10 years. Linda Mason brought her dogs Max and Chip to the school voluntarily and the dogs helped students with their emotional needs. Unfortunately both dogs had to be put down for health reasons. Mason is currently training a new dog called Dot.

“I believe dogs truly encompass the important characteristics that we encourage students to develop. They can also have such a calming impact on people,” said Wender.

VanDamme has no regrets allowing Charlie into their school.

“It’s been phenomenal … kids social and emotional needs are much higher than what they were 20 years ago. With those kids, this is their safe place, their happy place when they’re starting to feel bad,” said VanDamme.

Students that had meltdowns now spend time with their therapy dog at school and go back to class.

“This certainly isn’t going to fix all of our issues, but anything will help,” said Hood.