Museum front

Museum front
This is the future site of "The American Working Dog Museum" and its supporting coffee and gift shop, "Toby's Sit & Stay." We will eventually renovate the facade in keeping with historical preservation guidelines.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Hospice, for Real

I've finally done all the preliminary training and paperwork to be a hospice volunteer. Last week Toby and I went to our first volunteer training meeting, and the coordinator asked us to come to the front of the room and introduce ourselves. She then told the others how excited hospice is to start this program. She and the hospice director had to jump through a few administrative hoops, as they hadn't had an official animal therapy program before, but the way has now been cleared for future visits. I got my required flu shot after the meeting, courtesy of the hospital, which saved me/my insurance company a few bucks. Nice benefit, if you happen to like getting holes poked in your arm. I'm not really complaining. Maybe it will save me a couple of sinus issues this winter.

I was also asked to help edit a draft of their new animal therapy team policy. I feel honored to be the one to help them start the program. It gives me a chance to make sure the standards are kept high enough to ensure the professional conduct of hospice therapy teams. They were adapting a policy used by another hospital, which was geared entirely toward dogs, so I had to make quite a few changes to include other therapy animals. I also changed all the "pet therapy" terms to "animal therapy," explaining that it connoted a higher, more professional level of practice. Anyone can bring a family pet to hospice for a social visit, but only a trained animal therapist can bring a registered therapy animal to a facility and function in the professional manner required to ensure a safe and effective visit. The new policy states that only registered therapy animals will be allowed to make therapy visits, which I believe is a very wise move, both for the benefit of the patient and the liability of the facility.

Today I made my first official visit to the hospice wing, and decided to bring Teddy, my white cat. Unfortunately, only one patient was able to visit with us today. The woman I've visited with twice before, with Toby, appears to have entered the last stages of her stay there. She spends most of her time sleeping, and probably won't be able to visit with us again. I know the day will come when I will make my regular Tuesday morning pilgrimage, and find that her room is occupied by another fleeting soul. Such is the way of hospice, and I must try to accustom myself to it.

The woman who visited with us today is not as lucid as her family would like, but she did brighten up when I put Teddy on the bed beside her. We helped her pet him, moving her hand over his plush fur. She smiled for awhile, made some simple conversation about kittens, then dozed off. That's how patients sometimes signal the end of our visit, and we just quietly pack up and make our exit.

Since we had no other patients to visit, we spent a few minutes in some of the offices in the hospice's nursing station and administrative hallway, bringing a little therapy to those on the front lines. I sometimes think this is just as important as visiting with the patients. Seeing so much sorrow and death has to take a toll on the staff's collective psyche as well. I'm told that some of them -- as well as the volunteers -- occasionally need bereavement counseling when one of their favorite patients dies. It must be difficult to remain objective at times. I'm almost grateful that I'm only there once a week, and don't have time to form a close relationship with any of the patients.

Being in the hospice really makes you take a hard look at your own mortality, and that of your loved ones. I'm lucky that my parents are still fairly young (in their early seventies), but my father did give us a scare when he coded after heart surgery a couple of years ago. Working in hospice brings it home to me how lucky we were that he made a full recovery. I need to do some heavy thinking about my own health, and what I can do to maintain and improve it as I grow older.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Trooper Comes Home

Flashback:  Trooper proved to be a wild boy when we got him home. Suddenly his sister didn't seem so crazy after all. At four pounds, he did his best to dominate 20-pound Toby, chasing him around and play fighting constantly. Trooper always had his mouth full of hair from Toby's tail or mane. At first Toby didn't want anything to do with him, ignoring Trooper when he could and curling his lip in disapproval -- showing what Shetland Sheepdog people call "the Sheltie smile" -- when the puppy attempted to play with him. After a few days, however, Toby began to grab the other end of a rope toy when Trooper brought it to him as enticement to a game, and he soon got in touch with his "inner puppy," as my husband likes to call it. Those were halcyon days for Toby, when Trooper was still too small to inflict any major damage, and he was a fun playmate.

The potty training began immediately. We have a large wire crate that has been used for various pet reasons, including new puppies (Toby, and now Trooper), visiting dogs (Husker, who is another story), and cat isolation when a new kitten or cat came on board, or one of them had a medical condition that needed special care. Trooper was in this crate in our dining room -- we gave up our breakfast counter chairs for the duration -- when he wasn't doing his business or playing under supervision. He didn't like his crate unless he was eating or sleeping in it, but crate training is essential to consistent potty training and household safety. I confess to not always luring him into the crate, but sometimes picking him up and putting him into it, when my kids were demanding my attention and I simply didn't have the time to coax a puppy. This may have led to -- or at least not prevented -- a problem we still have: hand shyness. But more about that later.

It was in the coldest part of our Iowa winter when he came to us, and as soon as I put him outside to go potty he began to shiver uncontrollably. I decided he needed to be trained on weewee pads for the moment. These are plastic-backed sheets of absorbent material, about 18" x 24", treated with a chemical that encourages puppies to relieve themselves. We have a corner spa tub that is seldom used in our downstairs bathroom, just off the kitchen, so I overlapped three pads in the tub and set Trooper down on them when it was time for his business. He learned to use them quickly, and got a treat every time he used them. When he was finished, I asked him to sit, holding the treat just over his head and a bit back, encouraging him to reach his nose back and plunk his bottom down. Worked like a charm, and he learned to sit in only a day or two. It was then I realized just how smart he is, and knew I was in for both a lot of trouble -- a smart puppy, like a child, gets bored quickly and looks for something to do -- and a good deal of satisfaction, once I could channel the intelligence into productive training and work.

I already felt a huge burden to train this puppy correctly from the very first day, so he could become a therapy dog as soon as he was a year old. I constantly second-guessed my actions and attitudes, worrying that I was doing the wrong thing, or pushing him too hard, or not teaching him enough. I learned from a training manual that a puppy's golden window for training is between the ages of 8 and 16 weeks, so I taught him as much as I could during that time period: sit, come, stay, down, shake, high five, speak, and chase your tail. He wasn't always consistent in his response, but he understood the commands. I laid the best foundation I could, with the time I had for training, knowing that you can teach an old dog new tricks, but it's easier when they're puppies eager to fill their empty little heads with good stuff!

[I wish I could access my early puppy pictures, but I'm having some computer problems right now. I will post a photo of Trooper at about three months, where his blaze is not the massive drift of white it was at eight weeks, though still not as narrow as it has become since. I'll post earlier photos as soon as I get a new laptop and download from Carbonite.]

Monday, September 19, 2011

Super Duper Trooper!

Flashback: As my husband and I discussed our rapidly growing interest in animal therapy, we realized that if we (he wants to be registered eventually as well) want to be able to serve the greatest number and type of clients, we would have to have another therapy dog -- one who was in love with small children and had a higher energy level for physical therapy work (chasing a ball, etc.). I began my search for an adult dog to rescue, so he would already be settled into adulthood, and we wouldn't have to wait for him to become a year old. Petfinder.com became my constant companion, and I contacted many breeders to ask if they had an adult dog that they wanted to retire, or an adolescent that didn't quite live up to their show conformation expectations.

I found several dogs in our local shelter that I thought might work, and the shelter agreed to let me foster them for a couple of weeks to see if they would be suitable for therapy work. One was a wire haired bulldog mix, rather ugly, but with a sweet temperament. I asked my husband to visit the shelter with me to look at him, and Greg pronounced him too ugly to inspire warm feelings in therapy clients. I heard from the staff a couple of weeks later that they had taken him to a family gathering where he started nipping the small children, so we were glad we didn't take him home.

The next local dog was a West Highland Terrier ("Westie") who had been picked up as a stray along with another identical dog. He was nice enough, if a bit strong-willed, but he had a skin condition that I think might have been a flea allergy. Westies are prone to such things, and I just didn't want to take on a health problem that might affect how he looked (and felt) to clients.

The last local dog to come under scrutiny was a lovely little black and white Shih Tsu with a great temperament. I brought my whole family to see him, and my husband and one of the boys were immediately repulsed by his "bulging bug eyes." As much as I wanted to take him, I couldn't fight half the family over him, so he found a forever home elsewhere soon after.

We traveled to several shelters in our extended area to see other dogs that looked good online, but weren't what we wanted once we got there. One lovely Sheltie mix was just too shy for the job. Another American Eskimo was already adopted when we arrived. A Pomeranian didn't seem to take training very well. (He later found a home with a friend here, and has been a wonderful addition to her family.)

Breeders offered us some dogs, but they were either too expensive, too old, or too high of a health risk. Finally Greg and I decided that we should look for another Sheltie, since we had had good luck with Toby, and really liked the breed. We wanted one who wasn't quite as shy as Toby, so I started checking out the breed rescues in the Midwest for an adult who could handle therapy. We really wanted to find a rescue dog. We considered a four-year-old male named Twister, almost traveling to see him, but decided at the last minute that his ingrained habits of spinning in manic circles and urinating on the furniture just weren't going to work for us.

I contacted Linda Kotapish at the Sheltie Shack Rescue in Kansas, but she didn't have any adult dogs at the time that she thought were calm and outgoing enough for therapy. We had several phone and email conversations over the span of a few weeks, and got to know each other a bit as we discussed the problems I was having in finding the right dog. Then suddenly her rescue was blessed with a litter of sable Sheltie puppies. A backyard breeder she knows had had an oops! litter (born December 22) when she thought she was out of the business, and had decided to give them to the shelter rather than trying to find homes for them. The parents were distantly related, which might also have been a consideration. There was always the possibility of genetic issues cropping up.

Linda generally does not let first-time Sheltie Shack adopters take a puppy, and seldom families with children, either, but she said she felt good about us after talking with me, and wanted to offer us a puppy if we wanted to try "starting from scratch" with our second dog. Greg and I talked it over, pros and cons (potty training, unknown personality factors, neutering expenses, etc.), and finally decided to consider it. We got photos of the puppies almost right away, and it was hard not to fall in love with each and every one of them. We thought we wanted a female to neutralize male dominance issues, but the Sheltie people I talked to said that the females tend to be rather bossy, and that two males would probably get along better.

There were only two males in the litter, and one of them -- the one with a beautifully symmetrical face -- was already promised to a friend of the rescue. The remaining male had a face only a mother could love: lopsided mask with a huge amount of white on his face. We were disappointed, and thought maybe we would consider one of his better-marked sisters. Linda agreed we could have the pick of the litter, minus the reserved male, and we decided to go ahead and take one of them, no matter what. We narrowed it down to one of the females with the most outgoing personality, and the little lopsided boy. If we got the girl, she would be "Troika" in honor of our boys' Russian heritage, and the boy would be "Trooper" to celebrate our own service and honor that of our American servicemen. Whichever pup we took would, hopefully, be doing therapy in the VA hospital with us. (The pup's name had to start with "T" to fit in with the rest of our pets, a naming fluke that became a habit.)

We got word in the first week of February that the breeder wanted them out of her house at 7.5 weeks old, so we made plans to travel to Kansas on Valentine's Day weekend. We were invited to stay in Linda's home -- also her rescue HQ -- in the basement apartment of a lovely ranch house on the farm she and her husband share. We arrived on a Friday night, and got to play with the puppies for awhile before putting the kids to bed. We met all of the puppies, but then played with just the two we had decided to choose between. Troika was a little kangaroo, jumping straight up into the air and constantly starting play fights with Trooper. She paid more attention to our dog, Toby (the whole family had to go and get approved by Linda) than she did to people. She also had a domed head (it should be flat), which worried us not only for conformation, but for health reasons. (Her own forever family later reported that she had a few minor seizures as a young puppy, but who knows if the shape of her head had anything to do with it -- Shelties are prone to epilepsy.) She was a very beautiful puppy, but we were concerned about her energy level. We were afraid that Toby would not be able to put up with her harassment. He is a very calm and unassuming dog.

Trooper, on the other hand, was a little less lively, though plenty energetic in his own right. He jumped, but not as often, and was less of a nuisance for Toby. His face was still very white, but we could see the brown had started to close in on the white a bit, as we had learned it would as he grew older. Both pups weighed about four pounds, with Troika just a little heavier than Trooper. I was almost afraid to touch them, they were so small. (One of their sisters weighed only about 2.5 pounds, so we had the monsters of the litter at that point.) Linda put the two of them in a puppy playpen in the basement with us, and we decided to sleep on our decision.

The next morning we awoke to the sound of boys and puppies playing in the next room. We fed them, cleaned up the pen, had some breakfast, and got them out to play again. After awhile, we came to the decision that although Troika had the prettier face, Trooper was better suited to our family, and hopefully for therapy. If we were looking for a funny face that would bring a smile of amusement to therapy recipients, rather than an awed appreciation of the dog's beauty, he was definitely the dog for us. (We briefly considered taking both of them, but reason soon prevailed.)

Linda prepared the adoption paperwork, we paid the fee (more than an ARL, much less than a breeder), and she gave us a gift bag with a ball, tug rope, collar, leash, tag, puppy blanket, document bag, and some food. No AKC papers -- I'd have to apply for an ILP (alternate AKC listing) later. The adoption agreement mandated that he be neutered before he could reach sexual maturity, which we agreed to wholeheartedly. His litter was the perfect example of why dogs should be spayed and neutered. (His mother was eventually spayed before she could have any more "accidents.") All of our pets have been "fixed" as soon as they were old enough, or, in the case of Tinker, as soon as he came into our house.

The boys went outside to meet Linda's miniature horses (one got out, and we had to herd him back in), and we finally said fond goodbyes and started the trip home. Trooper was/is a great traveler, unlike Toby, who suffered from car sickness for the first year of his life. He had nary an accident in his kennel on the return trip, and was great about doing his business when we let him out in the grass. Several hours later we arrived home to start the next chapter of our great therapy puppy adventure: Potty Training.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Toby's First Therapy Evaluation

To pick up where I left off in the last flashback: I went online and found the Delta Society website, and Delta's local affiliate in Des Moines, Paws & Effect. They appeared to be the only animal therapy training and support group of any kind in our area. Their next training wasn't posted, so I got in touch with the director, Nicole Shumate. She promised to let me know when their next Pet Partners weekend workshop would be held in Des Moines. It appeared that it would be early the next spring, so I decided to go ahead on my own until then, making my own facility contacts and visiting wherever possible.

My husband discovered the Intermountain Therapy Animals website as he was searching for therapy animal information. They are another therapy animal organization operating in Utah, and have developed the Reading Education Assistance Dog (R) (R.E.A.D.) program. I was intrigued by this program, as I had heard of children reading to animals in schools and libraries. I pored over the website myself, watching their inspiring online videos and learning about the program. I ordered their training manual and began teaching myself how to run a R.E.A.D. program in libraries and schools. I could not become an official R.E.A.D. practitioner until I had registered my animals and myself with an organization like Delta, but that didn't stop me from contacting my children's school to see if I could work with any of their students.

One of the special education reading resource teachers asked if I would come read with one of her third grade students, a boy I'll call Bobby. Each Tuesday I would bring Toby to her classroom, and we would spend the last 15 minutes of Bobby's resource time sitting on beanbag chairs and reading a book of his choice. He worked very hard for Toby, and we helped him sound out the words and read with expression. At the end of the school year Toby and I visited his regular classroom and presented him with a certificate. (More about Bobby another time.) His teacher said he had made great improvements in his reading that year, and Toby and I hoped we had been a part of his growth.

Back to waiting for training: I happened to meet a woman in a grocery store when I was socializing Toby one autumn day, who told me she had her registered therapy dog -- a golden retriever -- in the car outside. We started talking, and she said she had tested with Therapy Dogs International (TDI) in Des Moines, and it only cost a few dollars. No prior training required. That sounded great to me, so I looked them up online and saw that their next evaluation was to be held in November. I talked it over with my husband, and we decided it made sense for Toby and me to go ahead and get tested and registered with TDI, so I could be an official therapy dog handler right away. I figured I could wait and test the cats with Delta, as TDI only tested dogs.

After talking it over with our obedience trainer, however, I realized that TDI does not allow multiple registrations: if I registered with them, I could not train and participate in the R.E.A.D. program. I could start my own "Tail Waggin' Tutors" program under the guidance of TDI, but it doesn't include animals other than dogs, training, or a local support group. I decided to take Toby to the TDI testing as a spectator rather than a participant, just to see what the test was like.

We went on a Sunday morning. There were quite a few teams there at the dog training facility where it was being held. I spoke with the person at the registration desk, and discovered that the test included elements of both the AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test and the therapy dog test. I could take the whole test (there was no separating the parts) and accept just the CGC for $10 if I wanted to. I was hungry for any kind of validation to take into the facilities with us, so decided to go ahead and participate in the evaluation. Luckily, I had brought Toby's brush, so I could give him a quick spiff up before it started. Grooming is part of the evaluation.

I won't go into any details right now about the test itself, but I will say Toby and I passed with flying colors. I was so proud of him! We got our paperwork and ordered the certificate and collar tag from the AKC. Even though we weren't a registered team yet, I could at least say that we had passed an evaluation for therapy and earned the CGC. When it came down to it, what we did and how we behaved in our visits mattered more than how many tags or certificates we had. We comported ourselves as confident professionals, and our clients were content to wait for our credentials.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

"Intro to Animal Therapy," or "How I Fortuitously Stumbled onto my Future'

Flashback: Last September I was walking Toby, our adult Sheltie, through our small downtown, and stopped in at a new craft consignment store. I took Toby in with me (he is so well behaved he is welcome in nearly every business in town), and one of the owners had his dog in the store with him. I struck up a conversation with the man, as dog people are wont to do, and discovered that his was a seizure alert dog (a service dog that warns its human partner when a seizure is imminent, so the person can go to a safe place to have the seizure or seek help). He remarked that Toby was a very intelligent, well trained dog, and told me that such a dog should have the chance to fulfill his potential, doing work of some kind. He said he was a licensed trainer of therapy, service, and search & rescue dogs, and offered to help me train Toby. I said I'd thought about animal therapy, and he thought Toby would be perfect for the job.

He named a figure for his training fee, and it was far more than I could ever have paid. (My husband would have rolled his eyes at me if I'd even suggested it to him.) He then said that I could train Toby myself, and he would evaluate us when I thought we were ready. I liked that idea much better. I immediately went home, ordered Kathy Diamond Davis' book on therapy dogs and a blue therapy dog vest online, and started researching therapy dog organizations. I also enrolled the two of us in a basic obedience class, to make sure that the training I'd done with him had been correct. We would need to pass the AKC's Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test as well as a therapy evaluation.

When the book arrived, I read it from cover to cover in just a few days, learning a vast amount of very useful information about training a therapy dog. Davis' book is referred to as "the bible of therapy dog training" by those in the field, and I could understand why. She covers all the bases. I didn't understand just how excellent it was until later, after seeing training materials from other sources. I only knew that after reading it, I felt confident enough to train myself and my dog, and began doing it.

I called a local nursing and rehab center, told them that I'd like to start visiting them in preparation for therapy animal evaluation, and was met with enthusiastic welcome. I asked a library if I could bring Toby in with me one day to train him in a library environment, and they asked me to come to their preschool story hour on a regular basis. I was at a YMCA fall kids' fest with Toby, getting him used to the noise and energy level of small children, and the activities director of an adult daycare (who happened to be working a booth there) asked me if I would visit her facility regularly.

I was overwhelmed with the response I was getting. I had never dreamed that we would be invited to so many places so soon! And we were still in training, not yet registered with any therapy organization. I made sure our homeowner's insurance policy covered liability for our pets when we were away from home, and jumped into volunteer "practice." I took both Toby and Tinker with me, at different times, on these visits, and our "clients" loved them.

Toby was amazing in his obedience class. We worked together to develop our teamwork, and learned to trust each other more than ever. One of the instructors and her dog were Delta Society Pet Partners, and she encouraged me to pursue Pet Partner training, evaluation and registration. We talked a bit about the difference between the available registering organizations, and Delta sounded like the right one for us, for many reasons.

To be continued...

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Adult Daycare Keeps Me on My Toes!

This morning Toby and I made our monthly pilgrimage to the adult daycare center. We had to skip it last month when I discovered that our flea medication wasn't working. There is no greater sin in therapy animal work than taking an animal with parasites into a nursing facility. I have always used Frontline on my dogs and cats, but since moving to Colfax, it hasn't done the job. Last fall I had to take a hiatus in my therapy work for more than two months until a hard frost killed off the flea population in town. When Frontline failed again this year, I was determined to find a cure before I had to bug bomb our house (we did it three times last summer, to no avail -- though it did prove to be effective on the spiders, thank goodness!).

I did some Internet research, and decided that K-9 Advantix (dogs) and Advantage II (cats) were the things to try. I ordered some from Petco.com, which seemed to be very reasonable, along with a box of Capstar as a boost, just in case. It arrived very quickly, and I dosed the whole menagerie (dog, puppy, and four cats). The results were nearly immediate. Trooper, the pup, had some lingering fleas, so he got a couple of doses of Capstar (you can safely give it every day if you need to), and all got their second monthly application this week. At last, something that actually KILLS fleas! (I don't work for any drug company -- just letting you know what worked for us, in case you have the same problem.)

I also took a tip from some of Trooper's littermates' adoptive moms, and sprinkled diatomaceous earth (ground up fossils) in the area of my yard used by the dogs. It kills fleas by slicing through their exoskeletons. Sounds awful, but I have no pity for the teeny varmints. Doesn't hurt mammals, but is deadly to bugs. Works on anthills, too, if anyone has a problem with those guys.

But I digress. The adult daycare is a bit different from my other care facility clients. The folks there are all alert and active, and expect more from us than a quick "pet my dog" session. So I always give them a short program of some sort. I've had to rack my brain a couple of times to come up with something entertaining, but so far I've always managed to think of something to do. They are a wonderful audience to audition new programs and tricks for, always encouraging and offering suggestions and questions that I might not have considered before. Senior citizens have a wealth of knowledge to share, and an inspiring curiosity as well.

Earlier this summer I was asked to do a "dog and pony show" -- minus the pony -- for a group of children at a library. The librarian asked me to bring both Toby and Trooper, because kids love puppies. Within just a few days I had to come up with a routine involving obedience demonstrations and tricks, something that would entertain a large room full of wiggly children. Luckily, my visit to the adult daycare was scheduled a few days before my library gig, and I had a chance to try out my program on the folks there. They were great, and helped me figure out where the dogs needed more practice before the children's program. When we finally did it "for real," the kids were enthralled, and Toby chased his tail in a record number of circles as they counted.

I didn't know until about 9:00 just what I was going to do for the program at 10:30 this morning. Dog or cat? Subject matter? I kept coming up empty. Then I happened to glance at the materials I'd used for the festival booth, and realized Toby and I could piggyback on them to present a program about some of the jobs that therapy animals can do. I explained our work in general, then focused particularly upon the Reading Education Assistance Dog (R.E.A.D.) program. To help them understand the program from a child's point of view, I read them the children's storybook I've written, Ben and the Reading Dog, featuring Toby, and then answered questions afterward. I was a bit embarrassed when they asked me to sign a copy of the little book I gave them. I've signed autographs for singing and acting before, but never for writing.

We also had a great discussion about other kinds of therapy animals, particularly the rabbits that this daycare had several years ago. I learned a lot, too, about how sensitive a rabbit actually can be to a person's emotions. One of their rabbits jumped into the lap of a very upset little lady one day, rested its paws on her chest, and nuzzled her in the neck. What a lovely, comforting experience!

A variety of species of obedient, calm, and people-loving animals can be registered as therapy animals. The most common are dogs, followed by cats. I've also heard of llamas, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, birds (usually parrots), bunnies, burros, horses and miniature horses becoming therapy animals. Reptiles and exotics are not allowed, for obvious reasons. Perhaps that will change in the future, but for now it is limited to "common" pet mammals and birds. I still get some surprised responses when I tell people that I have therapy cats, too, so I can just imagine their reaction if I offered to bring a llama to their bedside!