THERAPY DOG Information
We do therapy dog visits to Westview Healthcare Center 3 Monday afternoons a month.
We visit Big Horn Rehab & Care twice a week, doing half the building each time we visit.
We visit Green House Living twice a month.
The VA Hospital asked in January 2025 that we resume therapy dog visits there. About 10 years ago the national VA office decreed that only dogs certified through Delta Society could visit VA hospitals nationwide. Since there is no Delta Society group within hundreds of miles, the program here was discontinued. Hopefully by March 2025 will be visiting the nursing home/dementia unit and the long-term physical unit on a regular basis.
Currently, we do Reading Dog at Tongue River Elementary School in Ranchester, WY on Monday mornings (pre-K through 5th graders), and Holy Name School in Sheridan, WY (Just the kindergarten class).
I do presentations about therapy dogs whenever asked. I did a major presentation to the local chapter of National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) in December, 2024
Here are some recent therapy dog pages on my website:
Creating shirts for me to wear on therapy dog visits during the winter – one for each therapy dog August 2024
My Therapy Dogs Support Firefighters During the Wildfire, September-October 2024
My Presentation (with Lovely) to the local chapter of the National Alliance of Mental Illness about how Dogs Help People’s Mental Health, December 2024
Page 1, The U.S. Surgeon-General’s 2023 declaration that loneliness is a national epidemic and Dr. James J. Lynch’s research proving loneliness can lead to health problems that can take up to 20 years off a person’s life
Page 2, History of animals being used as therapy and Dr. Lynch’s research discovering how having animals in our lives can reverse the damage caused by loneliness:
Page 3, Therapy Dogs
Page 4, Service Dogs
Page 5, Emotional Support Animals
Therapy Dog/Service Dog presentation at Museum 2018
Berakah receives Therapy Dog Excellent Award 2021 (200 visits)
Lively celebrates her 100th therapy dog visit 2022
See Hopeful’s first therapy dog visits 2022
Reading Dog:
The beginning of Sheridan’s Reading Dog Program
Berakah – therapy dog for children
See kids reading to Berakah, 2020
See Spirit celebrate her 8th birthday with the HNS kindergarteners
See the HNS kindergarteners with Spirit, May 2024
See the TRE kids reading to Lovely, 2020
See kids reading to Lovely, 2021
See Reading Dogs at TRE, May 2021
GloryToo; and Lovely at Reading dog at TRE, May 2021
See Holy Name School kindergarteners reading to GloryToo, 2022
See TRE kids reading to Spirit, October 2021
Cantor, Reading Dog at children’s library
Trading Cards: the Reading Dogs have their own trading cards. Each time a child reads to one, or writes it a letter, the child receives a trading card.
See Berakah’s trading cards
See Spirit’s trading cards
See GloryToo’s trading cards, set 1 and set 2
See Lovely’s trading cards, set 1 and set 2
See Hopeful’s trading cards
See Pascha’s trading cards
See Jamboree’s trading cards
See Spirit and the HNS kindergartener’s 2023 trading cards
See Spirit and the HNS kindergartener’s 2024 trading cards
Doing Therapy Dog Visits During the 2020 Pandemic
January 2020: I normally do a therapy dog visit to the enclosed Alzheimer’s Unit at one nursing home every Thursday, but the entire nursing home is shut down due to an Influenza A outbreak. In fact, one of my favorite residents was so sick he had to go to the hospital. Last Thursday I texted the attendant in the unit about the time I would have been leaving home to go do the visit and asked her to tell all the residents that Lively & I missed being able to see them. (It was Lively’s turn to be their therapy dog.) She texted me back that one of them, at exactly 2 p.m. (time for my visit) began saying over and over again, “Where is my dog? WHERE is my dog? Where is MY dog?” and finally sat in a chair where she could watch the doors to catch sight as soon as we came into the Unit.
A while back the people at Chewy.com (where I got my dog food for years) sent me 4” x 4” paintings of all 9 of my dogs, on canvas stretched over wood frames. I don’t have room to hang things at home so hadn’t figured out what I could do with them, but Monday I got the brainstorm to write get-well messages on the backs and sign each dog’s name, and take them, with a get-well card, to the unit. I thought they were the perfect size for the residents to hold and enjoy and talk about since the live dogs couldn’t go. I gave them to a staff member at the nursing home door and asked them to take them into the Unit since I couldn’t go inside. My contact in the Unit texted me a little while later saying the residents absolutely loved them. Still later she texted that the residents had insisted they be hung on a certain place on the wall, by the painting of her German Shepherd that she had donated when she started working there and learned how they loved my German Shepherds’ visits. She even sent a photo. It’s so hard on the Alzheimer’s patients when they’re sick and their usual routine is all disrupted so hopefully that cheered them up. And they’re so fragile – have lost so much – that I’ve really bonded to them and my dogs seem to have, too. We made big posters – two, 14” x 18”, per dog, with photos and info about them, what they like, compete in, etc., and the staff posts them the morning of our visit so the residents know who to look for that afternoon.
December 2019: In their Christmas card, the owners of one of my PP litter included this poem they had written, which I just had to add to this page.
Cel and her Kids
There is a lady named Cel
To her Shepherds she’s a big deal
But even greater to all
Whether the big or the small
Special pleasure she gives
When visiting with her kids
The different locations
Schools, infirmed and the aging
Happy thoughts throughout
With Shepherds have no doubt
Whose unending devotion
Keeping life in full motion
Enlightening all the hearts
Is the big gift Cel imparts!
Thanks, John & Julie, for those beautiful thoughts.
***
The photos of my adult therapy dogs are old, taken by a photographer friend who is now dead. Most of the puppy photos are newer. I take photos when we visit and give CD’s of all the photos to the institutions so they can share them with their residents.
A visit to a nursing home with Glory (left), Bless (laughing) & Ashi (5 weeks)
