Stories

When children living with unbelievable challenges needed the calmest, sweetest dog Roxy was there. When teams were asked to work during Covid to assist our first responders, Roxy was there, always there, to share and help and make a difference. Roxy frequently participated in a Read with Me program so the children from a local therapy center could read with the amazing dogs. She visited Nevada State College, UNLV, CSN when the stress from midterms and finals were weighing heavily on the students.

One day while walking in Mill Pond Park, we meet a man walking with a younger man with some obvious challenges. The young man is wearing a helmet and is quite unsteady on his feet. The older gentleman bends down to pet Rhody; I pick her up and the younger man struggles, but eventually pets her and gets very excited about it. A couple of days later, I run into them again, and when I pick Rhody up for the young man to pet, he has a lot of trouble coordinating his hand movements; so Rhody takes her front paw and places it on his arm. And I realized that Rhody needs to be a therapy dog.

Grover was a much loved member of the volunteer corps at the Alaska Native Hospital, visiting pediatrics and adults on a weekly basis for 6 years. He was also a National Crisis Response Canine serving the Alaska community by helping child and adult assault victims testify in court, school children and teachers recover from traumatic incidents, and first responders and others start the healing process after fires, plane crashes and other events.

Bunny is famously known as the first registered Therapy Bunny with Pet Partners of Las Vegas.  Everyone looked for Bunny at group events, conventions, college visits and he also committed to many individual visits on his own, such as his monthly visits to Boulder City and Southern Hills Hospitals. Bunny especially enjoyed the large events, where visitors would do a double take when they realized a live bunny was perched in the white wicker basket and visiting with children, many of which had never pet a real, live bunny.

Megan, let me tell you about our life together

You were our companion, best friend, and our seventh Irish Setter

From North Carolina, we brought you home to NY, and Koenig Road

A beautiful little puppy, you were only eight weeks old

It’s really hard to believe, that was eleven years ago

Caesar and I were a busy team, visiting 2-3 times per week for many years. We visited a senior center's assisted living and dementia units, worked with adults with mental and physical disabilities, and made many visits to college campuses to help students relax as they prepared for exams. We also were one of the first teams to start a therapy animal program at an in-hospital hospice unit where he especially excelled at comforting staff and families. He lived a happy life after retirement and never lost his love of people. He crossed the Rainbow Bridge on January 10, 2023.

I would like to tell you about this precious Miniature Pinscher named Buddie, who served for 3 years as a therapy dog with me. He made children's days brighter at Nemours Children's Health in Jacksonville, Florida, and in many classrooms in Duval County. He loved kids as well as everyone and could feel when someone needed him the most.

Jill was an excellent therapy dog. I only had her for 5 years. Cancer finally got the best of her on February 6, 2023. She had already survived it 5 times. She loved going to the libraries for the children to read to her. But her favorite therapy work was at our local airport. She loved seeing all the people,  especially the flight crews.

While some of our ’rewards’ are small, we just don’t always know if we make a difference in their lives. It might have been a change in his medications, improvement in his medical condition or who knows what, but at this time, for this veteran, our visits seem to have made a difference.