Therapy dogs brighten day for students in special education
By Deborah Sederberg, The News-Dispatch

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LaPORTE - Barking dogs and laughing children sounded like a party inside the Trail Creek Dog Training Club facility in LaPorte.

But what was going on was a legitimate learning experience, said Debbie Frederick, special education teacher from Joy School. On the other hand, some lessons can look like parties because they're about play, socialization and unconditional love.

"They're all therapy dogs," said Frederick, a member of the club, referring to the boxers and shelties and border collies and mixed-breed shelter rescues.

Trent Edson was doing his best, but he couldn't quite get his arms completely around Griffin, a Siberian husky. Griffin was completely tolerant of all the attention he was getting from the 30 visiting students, including Trent, who seemed especially enamored of the dog.

Some children, like Trent, were eager to hug the dogs while others were content with a little petting. A few seemed content to simply look into a dog's eyes.

Studies indicate that people with disabilities, and even people suffering from serious illness, get a boost from interacting with dogs, Frederick said.

Youngsters and dogs alike seemed to enjoy the affection and the playing, the hugging and petting and even the occasional sloppy dog kiss from a therapy dog. Giggles echoed through the barn-like building.

Bill, a border collie owned by Joe Reese, was eager to get in on the action, but, true to his instincts, he attempted a little herding with the children, nudging them gently on their ankles with his nose.

Owners took dogs through their paces on an agility course where they climbed up and down, under, over and through a set of brightly colored obstacles.

Austin Salat helped Frederick put her own dogs, Maggie and Kelsey, through their paces in agility and seemed to love running around the track with them. Maggie and Kelsey are Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers.

"Austin has known Maggie (now 14 months old) since she was 6 weeks old," Frederick said. She frequently brings the dogs to school. "They love everybody," she said of the dogs.

Libby, Donn Weiler's boxer, is crazy about people. She looked almost sad when a child moved on to play with another dog. Smiling, Weiler said Libby seems to know instinctively how to approach people.

Suzanne Crider, who owns Shetland sheep dogs, sometimes called "Shelties," visits several nursing homes with her dogs.

She admits, the dogs do look like miniature collies, "But we slap people who say that," she added and chuckled. The dogs come from the Shetland Islands, the same place that produced the Shetland pony. Despite their resemblance to the Lassie-like dogs, shelties are their own breed, Crider added.

Nursing home patients love to see the dogs, she said. "You can just see it in their eyes."

Mandy, one of Crider's shelties, was ranked 13th in 2004 in the National (Dog) Allstars list. Mandy apparently left her royal airs at home while visiting with the children and eagerly submitted to all the affection they offered.

Therapy dogs come from all breeds, including mixed breeds, she said. Everyone at the nursing homes looks forward to a visit from Mandy.

A member of Therapy Dogs International, Crider wholeheartedly supports the organization's definition of the therapy dog's job: "The dogs bring sparkle to a sterile day, provide a lively subject for conversation ... (Therapy dogs) come in all shapes and sizes; real dogs with real personalities and real love to share."

Contact reporter Deborah Sederberg at dsederberg@thenewsdispatch.com.

Cold nose, warm heart
Therapy dogs offer unconditional love to those who need it most
By Gina Spadafori, Cox News Service
Monday, August 30, 2004

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We all know of the dogs who work actively to serve us  those who help in law enforcement, those who find victims after a disaster, or those who assist people with disabilities. These animals perform an invaluable service, without a doubt.

A less active and perhaps less lauded form of service is done by other dogs, often trained and handled by dedicated volunteers. These dogs do their duty by sitting quietly, by listening, by offering undivided attention and unconditional love to people who need it most  those isolated by illness or struggling with tragedy.

They are therapy dogs, and no one who has ever watched one work can doubt the difference they make.

"I got started because I had long wanted to do something for people in nursing homes," says Kathy Diamond Davis, the author of "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others" (Dogwise, $20) and a therapy dog handler of almost 20 years experience.

"I had met a neighbor couple when I was out training my dog, and he was doing doctor-ordered walking," she says. "His wife came to my door one day and told me he had passed away, and she wanted me to know that the last thing he had spoken of before he died was my little dog, Angel. I felt God tapping me on the shoulder, and got moving to our first therapy dog visit."

Over the years Davis has trained and volunteered with five therapy dogs and has had many other such experiences. The dogs, she says, touch people on a level that opens them up and can then give others the chance to help them more.

"The benefits therapy dogs provide are emotional," she says. "When the dog gets someone to get up out of bed, get out of their room, get dressed and participate in social life in the facility, the benefits can truly cascade from there."

Of course, you can't wake up one morning, snap a leash on your dog and head for the nearest hospital or convalescent facility. Therapy dog groups have worked hard for years to establish the value of canine support, and they're careful to maintain that trust and good will. While Davis believes many dogs can do some sort of therapy work, she says it's important that the established standards be met and maintained.

"Therapy dog handlers require control skills with their dogs as well as extensive social skills," she says. "For a typical, well-suited team, weekly classes for five or six months combined with daily practice of the class homework in as many safe settings as possible is a great start."

After that, says Davis, the team needs to be tested and certified to be as sure as possible that the dog and handler are ready to serve.

"The dog must be steady around other dogs, all kinds of people, noises, sights, smells  anything can and does happen on a therapy dog visit," she says. "Because we all love our own dogs and can't be totally objective, I believe the suitability of the handler and dog team for therapy dog work needs to be determined by testing."

The long-term commitment of time, energy and emotion tends to wash out all but the most committed volunteers. But for those who stick with it, the benefits are immense.

"The work is challenging to your mental and physical skills and therefore constantly motivates you to improve. It's top-quality time with your dog that also connects you with your community," says Davis. "I am endlessly fascinated by living and working with dogs. And I care about humans. That made therapy dog work natural for me."

CAN YOUR DOG HELP?
Some long-established nonprofit organizations offer resources on therapy dogs:
Delta Society (deltasociety.org, (425) 226-7357). Based in Bellevue, Wash., the Delta Society works to unite people with disabilities and patients in health-care facilities with professionally trained service animals.
Therapy Dogs International (www.tdi-dog.org, (973) 252-9800). Based in Flanders, N.J., TDI works to regulate, test and register therapy dogs and their volunteer handlers.
Canine Companions for Independence (www.caninecompanions.org, (707) 577-1700). Perhaps better known for training dogs to work with people who use wheelchairs or with the hearing-impaired, the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based CCI also trains therapy dogs for placement in health-care facilities and schools.
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Wagging tails have healing power
Therapy dogs help those who lost loved ones in Sept. 11 attacks
- Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 11, 2001

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New York -- It took Michele Boryczewski nearly three months to steel herself to walk into the cavernous waterside center set up for victims of the World Trade Center attack.

She had delayed the trip, terrified of confronting the reality of the death of her brother, 29-year-old Martin Boryczewski, a stock trader. But paperwork could wait no longer, so on a drizzly, December morning, Boryczewski traveled from her New Jersey home to the assistance center on Pier 94.

When she saw the makeshift memorial crowded with drying flowers, candles and photos of terrorism victims, Boryczewski, 34, grew faint, her head spun, her throat closed in.

Then a cheery little dog ran up to her, a cocker spaniel, its ears flapping,

tail wagging. Startled, Boryczewski lit up. She dropped to her knees and for long minutes played with the furry antidote to sorrow. Soothed, recharged, she rose, and set about her grim business.

The spaniel, known in the mental health profession as a therapet, is one of 100 specially trained dogs employed in New York's Family Assistance Center in an attempt to make life a little more bearable for those who lost parents, spouses, siblings, children, livelihoods or homes in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

"It's a place of such horror and upset, I can't believe the difference it made for me to have the dogs there," says Boryczewski, whose brother was an employee of Cantor Fitzgerald, a bond-trading firm that lost more than 600 employees in the Sept. 11 attack.

"The dogs gave me a lift I didn't think was possible. They are an escape, so uplifting. They don't even know who you are yet they adore you. Then you can go on to the next thing you have to do."

Since the attack on the twin towers, these specially credentialed, gentle- tempered dogs have provided unsung solace to victims of terrorism. In two-hour shifts -- the time is limited because the work is intense -- a few dogs pad around the Family Assistance Center, a carpeted warehouse for a quickly assembled collection of agencies, from the mayor's office to the Red Cross, FEMA and the Department of Justice.

Arrayed in booths like at a convention center, the agencies offer help obtaining death certificates or money for rent, food, funeral expenses. Each day, some 600 people, including displaced residents and business owners, still seek services at the center.

Providing balm for the bereaved, therapy dogs -- coordinated by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals -- have been at the center almost since it opened.

Although therapy dogs have been used for years in hospitals, shelters, nursing homes to comfort the ill or disconsolate, and although they were involved in limited fashion after the bombing in Oklahoma City, they have never before been put to use on such a large scale.

"It's not just puppy petting, it's much more," says Elizabeth Teal, a professional dog trainer who specializes in animal-assisted therapy. Since the center opened, Teal has brought her dog, Annie, 4, a caramel and white cocker spaniel. "Trauma is isolating -- these dogs break through that isolation.

"One day a woman was waiting to find out if her husband was alive. Annie went over to her, looked up as if she had never been petted in her life. The woman picked her up and cradled her as if she was a baby. . . . Another woman kept hugging her and saying, 'You're so alive, you're so alive.' "

Canine comfort, known in the mental health profession as "therapets," are providing wordless warmth, a brief respite for emotionally bankrupted victims of terrorism.

"We knew therapy dogs worked in institutional settings, but (they) haven't been studied in crisis settings," says Dr. Stephanie LaFarge, senior director of counseling services at the ASPCA. "The dogs provide something that a human can't."

Former cop Charlie Brugnola, who lives in the high desert town of Helendale in San Bernardino County, was so stricken by the East Coast terrorism that he, his wife and two therapy dogs drove for five days in their Honda minivan to meet with the grief-stricken, their first time in Manhattan.

Brugnola brought a particularly special therapy dog: Sweetheart had been doused with gasoline and lit on fire two years ago when she was a puppy. The joyful creature, a mix of beagle and terrier, survived skin grafts and three months in the hospital.

"Sweetheart was scarred on the outside but not the inside," says Brugnola, who retired from the Hawthorne Police Department, where he worked as a police canine handler.

"When I told people Sweetheart's story, it seemed to give them an even stronger resolve -- if this little dog could pull through, they could too."

At the center, the dog handlers unobtrusively stroll around with their dogs,

searching for receptive contact.

"One person cried on my dog's head for 10 minutes, her hair was wringing wet," says Gayle Kirschenbaum, a television producer, of her ever-present Chelsea, a 13-pound black and white Shih Tzu.

Dog lover Vincent Della Bella, who lost his wife of 38 years, Andrea, an executive secretary working on the South Tower's 103rd floor, was moved to tears watching the dogs interact with children.

"I was sitting down to do my Social Security work when in walked a fire widow and her seven kids," he says. "Next thing I knew the kids were all over the dogs. I had to go around the corner till I stopped crying.

"With the dogs, for a few minutes you forget your troubles even as you are going up to apply for death certificates."

Luciano, a nine-pound poodle, has been comforting grieving children twice weekly.

"One little boy wasn't talking at all," says Luciano's owner, Alice Bosveld.

"He kept slowly coming up to us. Suddenly, he started telling Luciano about his dad. His mother was so moved she had to leave the room.

"The dogs don't ask anything of you. They don't ask you any questions, they don't give you any advice. They are just there."

Email Elizabeth Fernandez at efernandez@sfchronicle.com.

Therapy Dogs International

Therapy Dogs Inc

Therapy Dogs Inc Links

Therapy Dogs are not Service Dogs

Human-Animal Relational Therapies

Bright and Beautiful Therapy Dogs

Doglogic

Therapy Dogs Seem to Boost Health of Sick and Lonely

American Chesapeake Club