More visiting!

Recently my therapy dog Danny and I visited our favorite local senior living home. As usual, we had a blast! Although a lot of the residents have Alzheimer’s (memory disease), the staff remember us and welcome us greatly! One of the nurses has Danny climb all over him with lots of kisses before we begin visiting the patients. I can’t even tell you how many of them ask if the dog is staying! It gets a bit sad when I have to say no, but when Danny performs his neat tricks that I taught him everybody’s moods are lifted! That’s the best part–those smiles from something as simple as a dog rolling over. Why can’t we all just let simple things like that please us? Not only do I brighten others’ days, but they teach me about appreciation along the way!

Good News!

Good news! A local pound agreed to display my brochures in their building! I’m really making an impact piece by piece!! Hooray for pet therapy 🙂

Yet another visit! (and other updates)

This past Saturday my dog Danny and I visited the nursing home in Succasunna to spread some smiles to the staff and the residents! It was great (and quite toasty in the place, as usual) and also as usual, Danny was fantastic. I hold him in my arms and lean toward all of the elderly residents in their wheelchairs and he soaks up the love and gives occasional kisses. It brings such joy to these people and I love working with him. 

Also, today I gathered brochures and a contract from the president of CCPT. I mailed it to a woman who lives in a senior apartment complex in a town who I have spoken on the phone with about introducing pet therapy to their community room at their complex; I can’t wait to hear their response! Wish me luck! (Tails crossed!)

 

I really really recommend pet therapy to everybody. Whether you’re a nursing home, hospital, library, school, or apartment complex, I think you should look into the immense benefits of having animals to be around. And if you have a compassionate animal, don’t hesitate to get started! I’m pretty sure you can sign up as a volunteer even if you don’t own a therapy pet. Creature Comfort Pet Therapy is amazing!

 

Excitement !

Danny is very excited because he knows that we’re working on introducing a new facility to the Creature Comfort Pet Therapy volunteer visitation schedule! I’m trying to incorporate one of two special needs children’s schools into our calendar for volunteer teams to sign up to visit.
Pet therapy is an amazing program that has been proven to improve the mood, performance, and sense of community among volunteer teams, facility staff, patients/clients, and their families. If you know of a facility that can benefit from it, don’t hesitate to suggest it or contact me!

What the heck!

I got to Merry Heart senior living just a few days after the Kiwanis presentation and they turned me away at the front desk!! Here’s what happened:

Some sort of upper respiratory infection was going around and the nurses had masks on and everything. They weren’t allowing any outsiders, especially pet therapy visits 😦 So Danny, my dad, and I got dressed and drove over there for nothing.

 

Don’t worry..we took Danny to the park instead!

Talking to Kiwanis

Okay so this was a huge deal.

My mom and I went to our local Kiwanis meeting because I know the club secretary and was invited to be the guest speaker. After sitting through their meeting, it was my turn to get up and speak about how my dog and I became a certified pet therapy team. I took tons of time planning out what to say and ended up just using my speech as a guideline for my presentation thanks to the skills I learned in my public speaking class.

I had my ID badge, Danny’s ID badge, and a flyer that I made with a few pictures of me and Danny or me outside a facility, all of which I passed around as I was presenting. My mom was amazed at my presentation skills and loved learning about Kiwanis as well as sharing her take of my Gold Award Project.               

The Kiwanis club gave me great information about how I could possibly do a workshop or even get parts of this blog published on a pet therapy website in order to really ensure a lasting impact. Thanks for reading!!

Creature Comfort Orientation

Hi everyone! Hope you’ve had a great day! 

Today, 1/14/14, I left school at about 11:30 and drove to Morris K9 Campus where Creature Comfort Pet Therapy was giving an orientation workshop to those who have just passed the evaluation last week. I would say there were about eight other new-handlers like myself there. After a 70 minute powerpoint presentation on the do’s and don’t’s of what to bring, how to sign up, how to conduct ourselves, confidentiality, and other rules and regulations, it was time to sign up for our mentor visit.

What is a mentor visit? It’s when an experienced dog-handler team shows you and your dog HOW to do a therapy visit at any registered facility. Because of my “one condition,” only the handler, not the dog, will be accompanying Danny and me. I believe we are going to a senior assisted living place nearby either this Saturday or two Saturdays from now, but the company will email me with that information.

I’m really excited because I know it’s going to be really fun, especially at a place where Danny can show off his box of tricks!

Thanks for reading, check back soon 🙂

De-TAILS !

The-tails of our evaluation last Tuesday, 1/7, go like this:

   Following my last post, Danny and I filled out our paperwork and entered the obedience ring. The room was empty except for a section in the back which was fenced off for the evaluations. I was the last one of the day, and there was a lady with her yellow lab (who had just failed the test) sitting on a chair in this area. Also with her were the people from the pet therapy company, Creature Comfort.  There was a black lab on a leash next to a man, two women, and another man. Another lady was clearly running the evaluations and the other lady was her superior, being more of a guide and observer. There was even a little Because-of-Winn-Dixie dog in a fenced in play pen. This all was very unexpected and made Danny a bit antsy. 

He took a few times to seem to hear my commands, but the evaluator let me do a few re-dos because he did most of the tasks well. There were three other dogs and he isn’t really dog friendly (just the way he was raised in his previous home, never got socialized with other dogs so now he wants to play but ends up growling and occasionally lunging). Good thing he’s a PEOPLE therapy dog! 

The evaluators new of these issues with Danny and purposely told me they wanted to see how bad he really is…which really any dog could have been much worse, and it definetely helped that he had attended obedience classes (in that room, I might add) because he was able to deal with other dogs and zone them out when he wants to. They debated amongst themselves over whether he should be passed or not..they didn’t even circle numbers on the rubric..it all came down to this problem he was given to me with. 

The decision: They applauded me for being a good handler and knowing my dog’s limits, signs of stress, and how to handle him in general. Then, they said he wasn’t focused on the other dogs in the room ONLY, like the yellow lab who had just failed. He approached the “noisy crowd” of evaluators comfortably and lovingly, which demonstrated that he had no issues whatsoever of nervousness, anxiety, shyness, stress, anger, or anything with people, purely dogs. And so they passed us! On one condition…we must not do visits with another dog-handler team and our mentor visit where they really show me and Danny the ropes will be with a mentor handler not a mentor dog-handler team.

 

Ta-da! CONGRATS DANNY, WE’RE ALMOST THERE!

Day One PTP :D

Okay so when we finally arrived to our private lesson, we jumped right into everything. Robin went through this rubric that each dog handler team goes through during evaluation. She had us perform each task a couple of times (with rewards, which aren’t allowed during the evaluation but are allowed on therapy visits). She scored us on a scale of 1 to 4, 4 being mastered this skill without being stressed and 1 being dog is stressed and takes time to recover/doesn’t listen to handler. Danny (because he’s so AWESOME) got mostly 4’s!

 

^The deal with this was that she played with his ears, paws, hips, and lips to test temperment. Danny was cooperating, just letting her do her thing, but he was a bit tense, so at home I have to work on handling him more like a vet would. 

^The restraining hug is very awkward. Dannyboy loves to be cuddled and picked up and held in any position, except this one. Robin sat on the floor next to him, put her arms around him like an awkward child would, and pulled him close–keeping his feet on the floor–for about ten seconds. I don’t know about you, but as a human I’d hate that, too. So I have to practice that and giving him treats as it occurs.

^The wheel chair and crutches were a piece of cake. Danny and I walked up to a dog trainer at the school whom we’ve never met, I picked him up, and then placed him onto her lap/let her pet him. He’s very good at this.

^The same woman grabbed a walker and hobbled toward us. Danny was a bit anxious about this one, though. He wasn’t growling or barking or shivering or anything, more like kind of trying to ignore the walker but failing. So we fixed this by putting treats all by the walker and having the woman feed him, too. He just hasn’t seen it before, but I can tell he’s gonna get over the walker issue by next class.

^Danny wasn’t overwhelmed by the four people walking by loudly chatting and dropping a dog dish. If anything, he wanted to go up to them (a good sign for a therapy dog!). He still wasn’t perfect, but I’m sure by next class or so he’ll have no issues with this or the group petting where these strangers lean down to pet him.

 

 

 

^Danny already knows the “leave it” command, as I’ve talked about before. It isn’t perfect by verbal command, though, and sometimes it requires me to physically block the forbidden item, but he gets the hint very quickly. We’re working on this at home to ensure his success on 12/10!

^Sit and Lay Down are two commands Danny perfected long ago 😀 His best “Stay” is in a Lay Down position, and from here he stays until I call him.

^Come is another one Danny is great at. He comes after I release his stay command.

^Meeting a friendly stranger is a bit unusual for Danny. Normally, Dannydog wants to go up and greet the person, or at least sniff them. But he has to sit at my left side as Robin walks around him and me and then faces me and shakes my hand. Danny did great with this, although he switched from sitting to standing, but that’s okay (apparently).

^Meeting a neutral dog is always tricky for Danny. This means he has to practice self-control and keep his attention on me. Danny and I approach Robin and her dog, with our dogs walking nicely on our left sides as usual. Then we each ask our dogs to sit. Then we shake hands and turn to the right to leave. It’s a big deal because Danny comes practically face-to-face with the other dog and has to chose to turn and follow me. I give him huge rewards as we walk away. Robin and I had to practice this with our dogs over and over because this is a biggie for Danny and can only really be practiced with her during class. 

^Danny always licks a treat off a hand nicely, without teeth, so there’s no worry about this last one (:

It was a one-hour long training session, and Danny overall got a great report card! Our next class is next Wednesday! Thanks for reading, I know it was long!

First Day of Pet Therapy Prep?

On Wednesday 11/27 Danny and I attended our first official Pet Therapy Prep class! But let me back up because there’s a good story behind the schedule.

The plan–last time I talked to Robin the deal was that my two month membership to the Levels program ended just as Danny and I worked through Level Three. So we decided my next move was to wait until Pet Therapy Prep started (which is a three-week weekly course and the fourth week is the Creature Comfort Evaluation) and sign up for that instead of renewing my Levels membership (which is timely and expensive).

Because this Pet Therapy Prep class was coming up, I signed up online for it like usual. 

The reality–I got to the doggy school in time for the Saturday afternoon class only to find a very confused set of dog trainers wondering why I was there. Robin came out of the ring very apologetically because she realized she never emailed me to say Saturday versions of this class are cancelled because there were not enough sign-ups, so it will only be held Tuesday mornings-while I’m at school!

The solution–Robin and the other girls worked out a new schedule with me where I can come for a private lesson on Wednesday and then figure out when to schedule two more private lessons before the Tuesday class’s evaluation on 12/10. Turns out I get the best deal, though, because I’m only paying $125 and I’m getting three private, one-hour long lessons!