Walk into Duo Dogs near Maryland Heights and you’ll see trainers teaching dogs how to turn on a light switch. You’ll see trainers swinging around in a wheelchair with a dog at their side. You’ll see makeshift stairs and hospital beds. This is the world of a dog training facility.
Off Leash Dogs
Most dog owners are responsible pet owners who love their dog like part of the family.
Most people are good people who follow rules and expectations set out by lawmakers and the community.
However, there are always a few who take no notice of how their actions may affect others. We’ve certainly seen evidence of that in many parts of the world during the pandemic.
Relating to dogs, there is a local Bylaw No. 1780 Animal Control and Licensing in Smithers, which specifies basic dog care standards and owner responsibilities.
Examples include leashing when in public and maintaining control of the dog at all times, and proper care of aggressive or dangerous dogs. Often, people who don’t adhere to rules are aware of them but figure, somehow, they have a valid reason for exemption.
Dogs being off-leash can be a prime example. “I know my dog is supposed to be on a leash, but don’t worry, he’s friendly,” is a common refrain by rule-breakers.
Somehow they interpret the bylaw to exempt their furry friend.
Or, they don’t realize that as friendly as their dog might be, nobody else loves them quite like they do.
Not everyone wants a strange dog approaching them. There are people who have a genuine fear of dogs and others, unbeknownst to some, that actually don’t like dogs.
That is why places like Smithers Barkpark exist, where people choose to go and understand dogs will be off-leash.
Often forgotten in the mix is the impact on service dogs. Having an off-leash dog approach a service dog can cause distraction and be a safety hazard for the service dog handler.
For example, Ross Levan of Smithers is visually impaired, and he and his guide dog Albert have faced this situation on several occasions.
A guide dog is trained to ignore other dogs and avoid distractions, but this training is away from the dog’s natural instinct. That means the dog needs constant reassurance and commands from the handler, who will often use the command “leave it”, which instructs the dog to do just that and focus on the job at hand.
An off-leash dog is a massive and unnecessary temptation for a service dog.
The temperament is irrelevant. Even if a guide dog isn’t threatened, excitably and wanting to say hello to other dogs could mean guiding someone into an obstacle, missing a curb or stairwell, or making a very dangerous mistake at an intersection.
During the pandemic, people are getting out more with their pet dogs to stay active.
If we are truly ‘all in this together’ remember those who cannot see and the extra challenges faced during these challenging times.
Rescue Dog Saved Couple
A borough couple and their new best friend, Otter, are sharing their story of resurgence following a near-fatal skydiving accident to help a North Jersey animal shelter potentially win $25,000 from the Petco Foundation.
Ian Azeredo, 34, and his wife Linda Farkas, 30, adopted Otter, a young Labrador retriever and hound mix, from St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in Madison this spring. While there are plenty of shelters closer to home, they chose St. Hubert’s for one key reason.
“He spent two mon ths in the ICU in Morristown,” Farkas said. “And they wouldn’t let you eat in the ICU. So I went one day to shovel lunch in my face real quick and saw this couple putting up therapy dog posters. They were local to Morristown, and they actually recommended St. Hubert’s.” An avid skydiver with more than 600 jumps on his record, Azeredo nearly died in July 2019 after he hit the ground at nearly 60 miles per hour in an accident he barely recalls. The impact broke dozens of bones, severely damaged organs, put him in a coma and left a dent in the earth. Azeredo spent nearly nine months in recovery down the road from the shelter at Morristown Memorial Hospital before he was released in March.
“I was a broken toy there, just kind of hanging on,” he said. “The one good thing was they had these therapy dogs that would come in and just kind of say hi to people. A lot of them were from St. Hubert’s.”
Azeredo and Farkas said they always wanted a dog but felt too busy to be proper caretakers considering their adventurous hobbies and demanding jobs – Azeredo is an aerospace engineer; Farkas a chemist who develops flavors. However, with the pandemic and the accident forcing them to be home more often, the time was right, Farkas said. So, they drove 45 minutes to St. Hubert’s.
A volunteer directed them to Otter, who baited them in with a wagging tail. Then, he jumped on Azeredo’s wheelchair and licked his face. “Immediately, I said, ‘This is the boy, right here,'” Azeredo said.
They named him Otter, after the Twin Otter plane the couple jumped out of on their first date in 2013.
To give back to the shelter that gave them Otter, Azeredo and Farkas submitted their adoption story to the Petco Foundation Holiday Wishes grant campaign. Since selected as one of 50 winning entries, their story is up for the People’s Choice Prize that could net St. Hubert’s a $25,000 grant. Voting runs through Dec. 16. Foundation members will also be selecting prize winners for organization awards of up to $100,000.
Tiffany Barrow, the shelter’s vice president of operations, said more than 100 shelter supporters submitted their stories to help St. Hubert’s try to win money from the Petco Foundation campaign. Shelter members broached the idea to adopters, after hearing so many heartwarming stories from those who email or post about their adopted pets on social media, she said.
“While each adoption and each family is unique, the common thread is that welcoming a pet into your home changes your life for the better,” Barrow said. Otter isn’t faultless – he barks at the delivery man and can be obstinate – Farkas said, but he has quickly become the couple’s best friend. When Azeredo is in pain, Otter joins him on the couch. When Farkas wants someone to adventure with, Otter will enthusiastically hike and go paddleboarding.
“Otter is perfect for us,” she said. “He is always ecstatic to see us, no matter how rough our days are.”
To continue to give back, Azeredo plans to have Otter certified as a therapy dog, so he too can roam the halls of Morristown Memorial Hospital.
“I remember being in that bed,” he said. “It’s hard to explain the frustration and shock that comes with being there and having so much uncertainty. Hopefully, I can help some people out by just relating, talking when they are going through a similar nightmare.”
SMASD Therapy Dog
St. Marys Area School District’s future therapy dog, a black Goldendoodle named Brookyln, is about halfway through her training with the New Hope Assistance Dogs organization.
SMASD Superintendent Brian Toth, also Brooklyn’s owner, said she is 10 months old and the second youngest in her class.
“Each dog progresses at different rates, but I’d say her progress is about half complete,” he said.
Earlier this year, Toth said he decided their next family dog would be a therapy dog, who could help reduce stress and anxiety for students.
Brooklyn’s last training was at Lowe’s in Warren, Toth noted. “This is to promote socialization and exposing her to different settings, situations and people,” he said.
Brooklyn can now “sit” and “stay” at one end of an aisle at Lowe’s, Toth said.
“I walk to the other end, call her and she comes running to me,” he said.
She has learned to “stop” on command while on stairs, Toth added, and how to get on and off an elevator, as well as how to be around other animals, crawl through spaces on command and others.
Brooklyn has visited schools already within SMASD, Toth said at a recent board meeting, getting acquainted with students and staff, who have quickly fallen for her.
“Students love how soft she is and love to scratch her belly and pet her,” he said. “Brooklyn loves the attention and is very calm with the students. There are a few adults who want and receive a big ‘Brookie hug,’ and they let her jump up on them.”
When she’s not being a professional, Toth says Brooklyn loves to chase her laser light and catch bouncing balls.
Family Gets Boy His Service Dog
A local family is looking to raise money for a service dog to help fill a critical need for their ten-year-old son.
“It would just make him a little more comfortable in the world that he lives in. The world that he lives in– none of us understand,” admits mom Starla Stevenson.
Her son Christian was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at age 3. In addition, Christian also has Hypotonia, and Sensory Processing Disorder. “As long as we could remember, he would put his hands above his ears to cover his ears and he had sensory issues,” describes Starla.
As Christian has gotten older, he faces more challenges. Socially anxious, he’s a homebody and doesn’t like to leave the house. “He does have some repetitive, stimming, and sometimes self-injurious behavior where he will slap himself when he gets frustrated,” describes Starla.
To help with the challenges Christian faces, the Stevenson family is working with 4 Paws for Ability to pair him with a service dog. “We work with all different types of special needs and make sure we’re really training our dogs case-specifically for each individual,” states Jennifer Lutes, the Associate Director of 4 Paws for Ability.
Matching Christian with a service dog is costly. It costs 4 Paws for Ability between $40,000 – $60,000 to train and properly place each service dog. “A family’s portion of the cost of a service dog is $17,000. So then that goes towards the breeding, raising, training, and placement of a service dog,” says Lutes.
The Stevensons started fundraising about a month ago and so far have only raised $300. They say the price of the service dog is well worth the quality of life it could give Christian, providing more than companionship.
“A lot of families report that getting a service dog is just this new chapter in their life and can give new opportunities to a child with special needs,” says Lutes.
“It would mean that he would be able to sleep properly at night and he would be able to go out in public, even like if we would say ‘oh it’s time to go to the grocery store,’ he would be okay to just go to the grocery store,” tears up Starla. “It would mean that we wouldn’t have to worry about him slapping himself when he gets frustrated.”
A Service Dog’s Career
yellow Labrador retriever named Paul was born to be a Southeastern Guide Dogs superhero, but as fate would have it, that wasn’t to be.
Barely out of puppyhood, the 30-month-old dog spent his formative months like every future guide dog, living for his first year or so with puppy raisers, and then heading back to Guide Dog University for professional training.
Paul was initially raised by a very active, on-the-go family in Orlando, which turned out to be quite overwhelming for the young pup with a calm, laid-back personality. After being returned to the Southeastern Guide Dogs campus in Palmetto for reassignment, the 7-month-old puppy needed about six more months of puppy-raising.
“They gave him to us and asked us to focus on positive behaviors by redirecting his attention somewhere else,” said Apollo Beach resident, Chip Barker. He and his partner, Chris O’Leary, have a longstanding relationship with the school as “puppy finishers.”
So Paul moved in and completed his basic training before heading back to campus in August 2019 for professional assessment and career training. It was decided there he’d be best suited as a veteran’s service dog, and his training began.
“All of his progress reports were phenomenal,” O’Leary said. But then the pandemic hit.
In March, O’Leary and Barker were asked to take Paul off campus (like all of the other dogs at Southeastern at the time) and care for him. They were told he had a bit of a cough and was being treated with medication.
He was No. 1 on the placement list, but as the months went by the cough persisted, and Paul was held back, O’Leary said, adding the school was doing everything it could to help the pup. It had him see a specialist in May, and that veterinarian placed him on a three-month course of (different) medications.
Ultimately, it was determined Paul could not be safely placed with a veteran, and other career options for him were explored to no avail.
“They dearly loved him,” Barker said. “He’s just so special. They tried everything possible to keep him in the program.”
But in the end, Southeastern “could not confidently place him as a working dog, so it was decided he would be dropped,” Barker said. “We got the call we were dreading (Nov. 19).”
Both men were devastated.
“We felt it was coming, but we knew he could have made a difference in someone’s life,” O’Leary said. “We kept hoping he could be placed.”
As is customary, the school offered Paul to his puppy raisers as a pet. If they chose not to take him, the dog would be offered to the public for a donation of $5,000. The guys had 48 hours to decide.
They spent those hours going back and forth on what to do. Twenty years ago, they had taken in and adopted another career-changed dog as a pet and temporarily stopped puppy raising. The dog developed bone cancer and died 11 years later, after an exhausting and heart-wrenching battle with the disease.
Afterward, they went back into puppy raising and enjoyed it so much, they felt they’d never own another dog. But neither of them could actually bear the thought of Paul’s going to a new home and both realized their home was actually the best place for him to be.
“After a whole lot of crying, debating and sleeplessness, Paul’s trainer came by the house to tell him goodbye and drop off some things for him,” said Barker, who thought she was coming to take him away. “Chris told her we decided we just couldn’t let him go. She broke down crying and so did I.”
That’s how Paul went from being a future superhero to becoming “Paul Barker-O’Leary.” Instead of changing the life of a veteran with PTSD, he’ll simply be a hero to the guys who trained him.
“He’s changed our lives and will continue to do so with everyone who meets him,” Barker said.
O’Leary and Barker will take a short break before accepting a new puppy to finish for Southeastern Guide Dogs. But this time around, things will be a bit different. Paul will take part in its training.
Therapy Dog Helps High School Students
Staff and students at Tupelo High School have a furry friend to help them through tough times. Her name is Wavely.
Last year Special Education teacher, Anne Marie Goad, started working on a proposal for a therapy dog for the school. When the pandemic hit, Goad had to put the proposal on hold, but she didn’t give up hope.
“It was still kind of in the back of my mind that it would still happen. I just didn’t know when. My eyes and ears were open for a dog that would come in,” she said.
In July, Goad said she saw a post on Facebook about Wavely needing a home. Even though it was two days before she had to return to work, she knew the school needed Wavely.
“More so than ever, because of COVID, we had to do to bring joy to our campus. It was a need before covid, but it’s even a greater need now,” she said.
Wavely is still in training to become a therapy dog. Goad said once Wavely is certified, she will be a presence for all students in the morning. There will also be a referral process for students who are going through trauma or a tough time.
Ninth grade counselor, Katie Schaefer, said Wavely will help meet students’ and staff members’ social and emotional needs.
“Even a small sense of comfort that Wavely can provide for our staff and for our students is going to go a long way,” Schaefer said.
Wavely is expected to officially start her job next school year.
Dogs Can Help You Live Longer
When service dogs were first introduced in the United States after World War I, they were designated for the visually impaired. But over time, their role has expanded.
Today, according to the Americans With Disabilities Act, service dogs are defined as having been “individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.” This includes everything from mobility dogs to hearing dogs to seizure alert dogs to peanut-sniffing dogs for those with allergies. Some service dogs steady their clients and help them get up stairs. Some work with people affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. Some even learn how to detect abnormal blood sugar levels. “I get people all the time that will be like, ‘Oh, it’d be really cool if my dog would bring me a bottle of water,’” said Kevin Hill, the executive director of St. Louis Huggs, a local training organization. “But I’m like, you don’t have any mobility issues, you’re not training your dog to be your assistant or your servant. This needs to be based on a disabled-related need.” Trained service dogs go beyond what you may think of. Many St. Louis-based organizations produce dogs that comfort patients in a hospital or lie next to sexual assault survivors as they testify in a courtroom. Regardless of the role they perform, these working dogs require two years of extensive training. They must learn all kinds of simple and intricate commands. They spend days practicing at the zoo, the airport or maybe an art fair. These dogs are workers who save lives in many cases, and here are a few of their stories.
One day in 2019, Elizabeth Kraus of Smithton was lounging by the pool. Her daughter, Bethany, now 14, was splashing around in the water, and their new service dog, Ida, was sprawled out on the deck.
That’s when, all of a sudden, Ida bolted up, ran around the pool and nudged her head toward Bethany. Ida is supposed to detect abnormal blood sugar levels in Bethany, who has Type 1 diabetes. But the family didn’t know what to do. It was only their second day with the dog. Nothing could be wrong. It was just a beautiful day at the pool. “I was like, oh my gosh, this is, you know, a $17,000 dog,” Kraus said. “What’s going on?”
Bethany climbed out of the pool and checked herself with a manual glucose tester. The number read 54, about 50 mg/dL less than when she first got in the pool 25 minutes earlier.
Bethany has “brittle” Type 1 diabetes. This means that her blood sugar levels can take dangerous drops in a matter of minutes without her knowledge. “Death drops,” Elizabeth called them. Drops that can cause her to lose the ability to speak. Drops that can leave her comatose.
For years, Bethany relied solely on technologies that would alert her to the dropping glucose levels. But the devices would beep on a 15-minute delay, and when they did beep, they weren’t always loud enough to get the family’s attention.
Now, whenever Ida smells a severe drop in Bethany’s blood sugar levels, she alerts her. They go everywhere together. To bed. To school. To basketball practice. Ida has gotten the attention of Bethany’s teacher in the middle of class. She has even pulled Bethany out of volleyball games, smelling her plummeting sugar levels from across the gym. Kraus could go on and on with times Ida has saved Bethany’s life. “Oh my gosh,” she said, “there’s so many.”
Judy Burch of Creve Coeur still remembers when a dog saved her life 46 years ago. It was her sophomore year at Mercer University and her first service dog. Since then, Burch, who is blind, has owned seven service dogs. But none of them has had a story quite like Buffy.
It was a normal day at college. She had just finished her last class and began walking across campus to the student center with her guide dog, Buffy. Burch doesn’t remember much else.
“I was in la-la land,” she said. Burch did what she always did. She let her dog lead the way.
The adviser, Burch learned, had just watched Buffy lead her through a sparking line of fallen power lines from that afternoon’s nasty thunderstorm. He didn’t know what to say. If he yelled out, Burch could have easily taken the wrong step and electrocuted herself. So he kept quiet and watched Buffy lead them through.
Burch was shocked. She had no idea. But part of her wasn’t surprised. She learned in day one of training school: “Always follow your dog.” Plus, Buffy had a “memory like an elephant.”
“The longer you work with these dogs, the more in tune you are with them,” Burch, now 66, said. “They know your movements, you know their movements, and we’re just like a team. They’re your eyes.”
Payton Rule was about to roll out of bed when she noticed a problem. Her shoes were on the other side of the room.
Rule had recently received surgery on her feet and couldn’t walk without cast shoes. Unsure of what to do in the middle of the night, Rule woke up her service dog, Whitt.
Whitt is a mobility dog. He supports Rule, who has a neuromuscular disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth, as she walks on uneven surfaces, climbs stairs and goes for long walks. But fetching something from the other side of the room? Rule wasn’t sure if Whitt would know what to get among all of the things scattered across the dark floor.
When Whitt heard the “take it” command, he sprung out of bed and walked straight for the shoes. He brought one back. And then the other. In a matter of seconds.
“I feel like he almost speaks English, like he kind of just knows what I need before I even give him the command for it,” Rule said.
It’s these small, everyday tasks that make Rule’s life easier and allow her to experience things she has never experienced before.
Rule, now a junior at Washington University, thinks back to her senior year of high school at the Whitfield School. Before owning Whitt, Rule hadn’t attended an event like field day before, where students participate in Olympic-style games. Actually, she had never walked to the athletic fields on her own before. The fields rested at the bottom of a steep hill. But holding on to Whitt’s harness, Rule didn’t just attend field day: She participated in softball and other activities.
For months, Lisa Jones and the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office worked with a victim of sexual abuse. No matter how hard they tried, the 9-year-old girl wouldn’t share her story.
The prosecutor’s office had recently received a facility dog named Levi. Although he doesn’t assist someone with a disability, Levi is trained for the same amount of time, learning how to stay calm for long periods of time and provide comfort to people who need it. The prosecutor’s office hadn’t used him yet. But Jones, the manager of victim services, was running out of options. She decided to give Levi his first case.
When she brought him out, the little girl looked at the blond furry creature and crossed her arms. “What’s he for?” she asked.
“If you don’t feel like talking to us,” Jones replied, “you can talk to him.”
Levi plopped down on the floor and lay next to her. The girl didn’t move. She just stared into his dark brown eyes.
Jones stood across the room when she heard some murmuring.
“Do you care if I tell you my secrets?” the girl asked Levi. Jones almost “burst into tears.” For the first time, the girl told her secrets to the dog.
When Duo Dogs, a local service dog training organization, initially contacted Jones about hosting a courthouse dog, Jones had her doubts. How much would it really help these victims? It took just this one case for Jones to find her answer.
“I was 100% wrong,” said Jones, who has been Levi’s primary caregiver over the last two years. “I mean the moment this dog came into our office, it completely changed everything. … It gives (victims) a boost of confidence to have this big yellow Lab lying at their feet, and if they get scared or nervous, they just reach down and touch them.”
Levi’s job is quite simple — chill out and let his demeanor do the work. He sits through daily depositions. He gives victims something warm to pet during the grueling hours of jury deliberation. Across the board, Jones has seen a substantial decrease in the anxiety of victims, from children to adults. “The person that (Levi’s) working with feels like they have the power and control,” Jones said. “And for a crime victim, I think that’s really, really important.”
Ali Chancellor has owned three service dogs in her life. And between each dog, Chancellor has had to wait a few days. Some might enjoy the mini-break from taking care of a dog. But, in those moments, Chancellor felt lost.
“I was like, what do I do with myself?” Chancellor, 40, said. “I don’t have a dog to walk. This is not good. My whole routine is up a creek.”
Chancellor has cerebral palsy. She uses a wheelchair and has no functionality in her right arm. As a result, her dogs do a little bit of everything for her. They help pick fallen groceries off the ground. They help her open doors. They even help her take off her clothes. Before getting a service dog, it took Chancellor hours to get changed, she said. Now it takes 10 minutes. During those lull periods without a dog, Chancellor, who lives in the Central West End, found that she kept dropping things, with no easy way to pick them back up.
“Every time I drop something, I would just literally cry,” Chancellor said, “because I would be like there’s no one here to pick it up, and I don’t want to do that. Because if I do it and there’s no one here and I fall, then, that’s the end of the story.”
A few years ago, she remembers falling in her bathroom. Growing up, she would just call her parents. But living by herself in her apartment and unable to get back up, she beckoned her dog. The dog went into the other room, grabbed her phone and brought it back. That’s why Chancellor calls the dogs her “security blanket.” “They’re basically the arm that I don’t have.”
Mary McNeight would go out to a restaurant and feel her brain starting to shut off. She would just stare at the walls through glazed eyes, sweating and unable to respond. “I kind of looked like a drug addict, in all honesty,” she said.
For years, McNeight assumed they were panic attacks. She dreaded leaving the house. In 2008, she got a dog, Liame. McNeight’s ex-husband had diabetes. She taught Liame herself how to detect the drops in his blood sugar. Shortly after, she began teaching others how to train their dogs to do the same.
It was during one of these training classes that McNeight’s dog started alerting her uncontrollably. She asked everyone in her class to check their glucose levels, but no one’s monitor reported anything unusual. Still, the dog wouldn’t stop pawing at her. She thought Liame was “broken.”
That’s when McNeight decided to test herself. Liame, she noticed, was alerting her. She was the one with low glucose levels. Those episodes in public settings weren’t panic attacks. They were low blood sugar episodes. McNeight later learned that she has Type 2 diabetes.
That day changed her life. She started bringing Liame everywhere. Liame would alert her 20 minutes before each episode, preventing those “zombie-like” attacks. It convinced McNeight, 43, to start her own training program, Service Dog Academy, now home-based in Waterloo. But it also gave her the confidence to leave the house again. The thought of Liame, who died four years ago, still brings McNeight to tears over the phone.
“I went from going nowhere and staying in my house,” McNeight said, “being afraid that emergency personnel would be called on me. Being afraid to go out in public. … The most moving thing for me was that he gave me my life back. He gave me a life.”
Veterans With Service Dogs
Veterans with service dogs in Chino Hills will no longer pay license fees for their animals after the city develops a program with the Inland Valley Humane Society.
Assistant city manager Rod Hill told the council Nov. 10 that he has received numerous requests over the years to waive license fees for service dogs owned by veterans.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), service animals must be trained to specifically assist an individual with disabilities, he said.
Emotional support, comfort and companion animals are not considered service animals under the ADA, he said.
Mr. Hill said the city currently waives license fees only for service dogs trained to assist individuals with visual disabilities.
Chino Hills resident Ed Denzin, founder of Service Animal Training, wrote a letter to the council last December requesting a fee waiver.
“There are a lot of people in Chino Hills who are requesting service dogs,” he said. “Other cities waive license fees for service dogs, and I figured it would be nice for Chino Hills to do the same.”
The Marine veteran said his organization meets every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at Ayala Park in Chino with the goal of providing obedient, properly trained and certified service dogs to help people with disabilities and improve their quality of life.
Mr. Denzin said service dogs help veterans and others with disabilities such as seizures, diabetes, and PTSD.
There are two fees for service dogs: one is the California service dog registration fee that the Inland Valley Humane Society provides at no cost, Mr. Hill said. The second is the dog licensing fee which is collected by the Humane Society with a portion going back to Chino Hills.
License fees are $20 for altered dogs and $50 for unaltered dogs. License fees for dogs owned by seniors are $5 for altered dogs and $50 for unaltered dogs.
Ola Madsen of Chino Hills said he is grateful for the fee waiver. The Navy veteran who served from 1968 to 1970 said he has PTSD, tinnitus, vertigo, and two recent knee surgeries.
His Belgian Malinois named “Sunshine” has been trained to sense when he gets vertigo and stands by his side. When he stands on weak knees, Sunshine stands in front of him. When going upstairs to his apartment, he grasps her tail that she holds out for him.
After Sunshine was trained at Service Animal Training, Mr. Madsen became a trainer.
Now, he works alongside Mr. Denzin and Gary Matlack to help others.
Therapy Dog Research Study
The Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) and Pet Partners have awarded a grant to the Indiana University School of Medicine for a new research project investigating the impact of therapy dog visits on the anxiety levels of children in emergency care.
“Registered Pet Partners therapy dog teams visit hospitals throughout the country, and we know they can put a smile on a child’s face, no matter what they are going through,” said C. Annie Peters, president and CEO of Pet Partners. “Scientific research to validate the efficacy of therapy dogs in the emergency room has the potential to not only provide more children with much needed comfort and emotional support, but to also help serve as a complementary intervention to improve medical outcomes.”
Jeffrey Kline, MD, principal investigator of the study, said, “Virtually all children experience some degree of psychological stress as patients in the emergency department. The inclusion of therapy dog visits in addition to a child-life specialist could provide a low cost, low risk method to help reduce child and parental anxiety in the emergency department.”
The research project—“Canine-assisted anxiety reduction in pediatric emergency care (CANINE III)”—is an NCT-registered, two-arm, block randomized trial with one-to-one matching of patients receiving therapy dogs as an adjunct with a child life specialist, compared with children who receive child life specialists alone, according to officials. The children will receive a 15-minute visit, with the research team periodically collecting saliva samples to test for cortisol levels, or the level of stress. Dr. Kline, according to officials, will complete this project alongside co-investigator Alan Beck, Ph.D., Purdue University. The study will also test if therapy dogs afford greater anxiety reduction in children with psychiatric complaints, autism spectrum disorder or brain injury versus children with none of those conditions, officials further noted.
“One of the absolute unique and paradigm-changing aspects of this work is that dogs bring the dimensions of affection and unconditional caring to children and families during times of perceived emergency,” Kline said. “This objective is important because anxiety, stress and ‘threat perceptions’ are major negative modifiers of the emergency department experience in adults and children.”
Steven Feldman, executive director of HABRI, added, “HABRI is proud to be supporting research on the benefits of therapy dogs for children in the emergency room, which represents an important area of research. HABRI is grateful for the support of Pet Partners for this project, which we hope will provide further evidence of the complementary role of therapy dogs in human health care settings.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and concurrent precautions at the participating hospital, as of press time, the start of the project was on hold.
“The project will commence once in-person visitation is deemed safe and permitted,” officials said.
Five Heroic Dogs
“The impact that dogs have on our lives every day is immeasurable, and with so many amazing nominations, it was not easy to select only one in each category,” said Doug Ljungren, President of the AKC Humane Fund. “These five dogs have made substantial differences in the lives of their owners and communities, touching countless hearts along the way. We are honored to be able to recognize their achievements with the ACE awards.”
The 2020 AKC Humane Fund Awards for Canine Excellence are proudly sponsored by Eukanuba™. Each ACE recipient will receive $1,000 to be awarded to a pet-related charity of their choice, a one-year supply of Eukanuba premium dog nutrition, and an engraved sterling silver medallion.
“The heroic canines who are receiving the ACE awards this year have gone above and beyond the call of duty: comforting the ill, providing therapeutic support to those in need and reminding us of the powerful bond between animals and dogs,” said Jason Taylor, National PRO Sales Director for Eukanuba. “As a brand truly passionate about supporting extraordinary dogs, Eukanuba is honored to recognize these heroic dogs and provide premium nutrition to help fuel them in their continued service to others.”
“K-9 Stella” is a three-year-old Bloodhound working for the Tallahassee Police Department Special Victims Unit as a Scent Evidence K-9 with her handler, Paul Coley, CEO of Scent Evidence K-9 and former FBI Forensic Canine Operations Specialist. Stella and Coley have been working cases for their department as well as several federal, state, and local agencies for the past two years.
Along with her handler, Stella has worked multiple missing persons cases involving people affected with Alzheimer’s or Dementia wandering off. Stella has an impressive record of confirmed trails leading to the recovery of missing persons in the Florida panhandle. In addition to her work bringing missing persons home, Stella is an essential resource for the Tallahassee Police Department Special Victims Unit, assisting with several criminal apprehensions and is even credited with the apprehension of two double homicide suspects.
When Stella is not busy reuniting missing persons with their families, she is often alongside Coley, traveling throughout Florida to educate communities on how her nose can help responders locate people, should they go missing. They discuss how to protect people with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia (ADRD) who are at high risk of wandering. Stella also recently participated in Coley’s “On the Trail for the Cure” fundraiser campaign for the Alzheimer’s Association’s The Longest Day event.
Stella is an important resource for her Police department and her community and will continue her mission to create safer communities as part of the Bringing The Lost Home Project, a bill that was recently passed by Florida legislators to enhance missing person response capabilities in law enforcement, particularly with Florida’s large elderly population with Alzheimer’s.
“Monson,” officially known as CH Yankee Sebago & Patch Mt Miles To Go Monson CGCU, BN, RA, TDIAOV, THDX, TKP, OAP, OJP, NFP, CC, RD is a nine-year-old Dalmatian owned by Melissa MacWilliams of Buxton, ME. Monson has competed in various AKC sports, including Conformation, Agility, Rally, and Obedience, but his work as a therapy dog is where he truly stands out.
As part of his extensive list of therapy work, Monson visits a teen shelter to provide love and comfort to homeless adolescents struggling with mental illness, abuse, addiction, PTSD, and gender identity. Monson also provides comfort at an organization for adults who are transitioning from homelessness and struggling with alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health issues.
Additionally, Monson and Melissa visit a local nursing home every week and provide comfort at local schools. The therapy team visits Universities to offer stress relief for students during exam weeks, participates in a reading program at a middle school and visits a high school to provide a welcome break for students who are stressed or upset. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted his in-person visits, Monson and his owner created videos to stay connected and donated essentials to the school to assist students in need. Monson has become such a staple at the local high school, he was listed as a staff member in the 2020 yearbook.
“Luke,” a six-year-old Labrador Retriever, serves as a mobility service dog for his owner, Ryan Garrison of Beavercreek, OH. Garrison enlisted in the U.S. Air Force immediately following the September 11th attacks on the twin towers and was severely injured while deployed in Iraq in 2006. His injuries included fractured and torn disks in his back, which have resulted in numerous surgeries, chronic pain and anxiety.
Luke was paired with Ryan as his mobility service dog in 2016 through the nonprofit organization, Warrior Canine Connection (WCC). Luke not only helps Garrison with his mobility and everyday tasks, but since being paired with him, Garrison has been able to better control his anxiety and has even decreased his need for medication. Even more importantly, Ryan credits Luke with shifting his entire perspective on life – bringing him out of a dark place and giving him a new sense of positivity and happiness.
In January 2020 Ryan and his son were involved in a rollover vehicle crash, which triggered flashbacks of his incident in Iraq. Luke gently nudged and pawed at Ryan to pull him out of his anxiety attack. Once they were pulled to safety, Luke calmly walked over to him and took the comfort command position that he was taught at WCC. Even during such a traumatic incident, Luke followed his training and put comforting his owner ahead of anything else.
The experience with the incident earlier this year has inspired Ryan’s next challenge, Valor Therapeutics, a nonprofit he and his wife are launching to serve active duty Veterans and first responders in Dayton, OH and the surrounding area. They plan to provide alternative forms of therapy to individuals who’ve seen and experienced traumatic life events.
“Shiraz,” officially known as CH Bord du Lac Shiraz CDX ROM1, is a 12-year-old Belgian Malinois, certified as a Human Remains Detection Dog by the National Network of Canine Detection Services. She is a highly acclaimed search and rescue dog working with her owner and handler, Susan Goodhope of Havana, FL.
In her storied career spanning over a decade, Shiraz has taken part in over seventy searches throughout the southeast, including forensic, archaeological, and historic searches. In 2013, Shiraz was tasked with locating a Native American burial mound that was referenced in a publication after Archaeologists were unable to locate it for eight years. After searching for an hour in an overgrown, wooded area, Shiraz gave the indication that she detected human remains. A meter underground from where she indicated, a human toe bone was discovered, and radiocarbon dated all the way back to 670 A.D.
Along with her handler, Shiraz has also assisted in locating unmarked graves for communities, churches and families as well as those of slaves, who were buried in poorly marked areas on plantations. She assisted in the location of 900 graves in the Flipper Cemetery in Thomasville, Georgia, which has since been marked and restored. Over time, as records are lost and simple wooden markers decay, memories fade, but Shiraz’ work in locating these final resting places has given the respect due to those individuals and has brought closure to the families.
“Tara,” is a four-year-old Flat-Coated Retriever owned by Mary Pat Corrigan of Flint Hill, VA. Born into an elite family, Tara’s mother won her breed at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, the AKC National Championship and the Flat-Coated Retriever National Specialty. But, when Tara was born with a short right front leg and no paw, she was not expected to survive.
Tara not only survived, but persevered, becoming a superior athlete in dock diving. Currently, she is nationally ranked as the #3 Flat-Coated Retriever in Air Retrieve and #6 in her breed in Distance. She has also already qualified for Distance at the North American Diving Dogs (NADD) Nationals this year.
In 2019, Tara became an honorary Adaptive Athlete member of a cycling team, Pedallers for the Wounded, hosted by the nonprofit, World T.E.A.M. Sports. This team, along with over 400 other cyclists, participate in a 2-day, 112-mile cycling challenge. The challenge benefits the Wounded Warrior Project, and Tara was the #3 fundraiser in last year’s event. When Tara is competing, she is an intense competitor, often moving onlookers to tears, but off the dock, she is sweet-tempered, playful and happy.
