"Dogs, bless them, operate on the premise that human beings are fragile and require incessant applications of affection and reassurance. The random lick of a hand and the furry chin draped over the instep are calculated to let the shaky owner know that a friend is nearby.." - Mary McGrory
"I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source." - Doris Day
"One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you're feeling blue is that he doesn't try to find out why."- Author Unknown
My dog, Cheyenne, and I walk into a room at the nursing home we visit each month. In the bed, I see a curled up figure barely visible beneath the thin cotton blanket. As I walk around the bed to face the "patient", my eyes meet those of a white haired, frail little woman. In them, there seems to be no expression, no recognition, no emotion. Cheyenne slowly places her paws on the edge of the bed bringing her golden colored head and tender brown eyes into view. The woman's gaze drifts from me to Cheyenne, and I watch as the transformation occurs. A spark of life comes into her eyes, the corners of her mouth turn up ever so slightly and the knees which were tightly pulled to her chest begin to relax and unfold.
The value of animals in promoting healing and growth has become increasingly recognized among professional care providers, clinical practitioners, and educators. Today, trained and certified animal/handler teams are used in medical, psychiatric, rehabilitation, and special education facilities throughout the world to provide a medium for assisting individual where traditional methods fall short.
What makes For Pits' SakeAnimal-Assisted-Therapy unique is that the real work is done by animals, not humans. Time and again, our four-footed "therapists" have elicited nearly miraculous responses from deeply troubled or abused children, physically traumatized hospital patients, and even those who are terminally ill. We have seen a child use a hand that was partially paralyzed from illness strive hard and succeed in stroking our dog, Dakota's, back. On another occasion, we have seen one of our dogs curled up contently in the arms of a man wha had recently had a stroke and was very depressed. Since touch is a powerful sense and speech was unnecessary, the man smiled as he stroked Cheyenne's fur. The nurse told us she had never seen this man smile.
Participating facilities feel the program is a critical part of their total therapy. The consistent, regular visits from both humans and animals achieve lower heart rates, calm disturbed children, get uncommunicative people to convers and increase an ill person's chances for survival. Nursing home patients respond more to visitors when they are accompanied by pets and even physically aggressive patients become more tolerant of others when an animal is present. Convalescing residents, victims of Alzheimer's disease and chronically ill patients look to the visits from For Pits' Sakevolunteers and our companions to dispel loneliness, focus attention on life and bring hope in the midst of their recovery.
All of our dogs and handlers are graduates of the EXTENSIVE For Pits' Sake Animal-Assisted-Therapy Training Program to be able to function safely in hospital settings. Our training program does more than just temperament test dogs. We take it a step further by educating our handlers on the proper protocols to prevent disease transmission. Many animal-assisted-therapy organizations do not follow these protocols. Dogs walk on floors, then get on patients' beds, often without a clean towel. Visits often are unsupervised which allows teams into any room, even those in which they shouldn't visit. Handlers do not clean their hands nor wipe their pets paws between visits. Many facilities want "visiting animal" programs, but do not take the time to properly train their staff nor volunteers on protocols. For Pits' Sake works with epidemiology departments to development sound policies and procedures for each facility.
If you know of a facility that could benefit from the For Pits' Sake Animal-Assisted-Therapy program, please contact us by clicking HERE.
