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.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Toby Gets Published

I recently wrote an article for interventions magazine, a Pet Partners (formerly Delta Society ) publication. I will copy my submission here. It may be edited for publication, so you'll see the original first. I have changed the names of clients and staff to protect their anonymity.

Toby, my Shetland Sheepdog, and I became Pet Partners in the spring of 2011. He has the natural reserve of the Sheltie, which at first worried me, but I've come to understand that there is a special calling for dogs like Toby. He isn't the kind of boy who runs up to a stranger and begs for attention. Rather, he is a very gentle soul with the gift of calming quiet for those who need comfort and consolation. He is a wonderful R.E.A.D. dog, lying peacefully beside the children who attend our "Pawed Pages" summer reading programs in two local libraries. And he is the picture of tranquility as we minister to residents in care facilities, sitting or lying next to them, offering his paw to shake, or performing tricks for those who need a livelier visit or physical therapy.

In January of 2012 Toby and I made our regular monthly visit to a nursing and rehabilitation center. It had been a normal meet-and-greet type of visit, nothing out of the ordinary. We were just about to leave when we passed by a lounge with several residents in wheelchairs watching TV. 'Nancy,' the Activity Assistant accompanying us, realized that one of the women there was shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. "Oh no," Nancy said, "'Ginny' gets like this sometimes, and doesn't stop crying for hours, sometimes all day. We've never been able to stop her; she just has to get it out of her system." The staff is always distressed when she has a day like this, because they can't find a way to help her.

Toby and I had visited with Ginny several times before. She had taken cell phone pictures of herself with Toby on her lap, and always enjoyed spending time with him. Watching Nancy try to comfort her, I had an idea. Ginny's wheelchair had an attached tray table spanning it (for books, drinks, etc.), and I asked Nancy if she could put Toby's towel on the table. I lifted his 20-pound body up onto the narrow table and positioned him in a "down" directly in front of Ginny. He just fit, if he didn't move.

I told her that Toby had celebrated his sixth birthday a few days earlier, and she began singing "happy birthday" to him between sobs. She put out her hands to pet him, and said in a querulous, tear-filled voice, "I...want...kisses." Now, Toby is not a very "licky" dog, and seldom gives kisses to strangers. But he suddenly started licking her hands, and didn't stop until she calmed down and stopped crying. It took less than ten minutes for Ginny to change from total devastation to grins and laughter. It seemed that we had witnessed a small miracle.

We took our leave of a smiling Ginny with a deeper awareness of the human-animal bond, knowing that Toby had made a difference in the quality of her day. Nancy expressed her heartfelt thanks, on the verge of tears herself. We both felt that we had experienced something very profound.

A few days after our visit with Ginny, Toby and I found ourselves in the Monarch Wing of Skiff Hospice in Newton, Iowa. We spent nearly an hour with 'Carl,' a retired engineer. Toby lay next to him in the hospital bed, pressed between Carl's thin body and the side rails, with his muzzle on Carl's chest and his expressive almond eyes gazing into Carl's face. While Carl stroked Toby's soft fur with a frail hand taped with an IV tube, he told us about his career as a WWII navy flier and then as a civilian engineer. We heard the stories of how he met and married his wife, and of his children's and grandchildren's trials and successes.

Carl told us with pleasure of the years he had spent visiting the hospice with his own little dog, Susie, whispering with difficulty as the nasal tube fed him oxygen. We both smiled at the remarkable circle of life: the former hospice animal therapist now being visisted in hospice by another, younger, dog therapy team. It was hard to say goodbye to Carl, as he and Toby seemed to be enjoying their visit so much, but he needed his rest, and so we took our leave.

The next week I made my usual phone call to the hospice volunteer coordinator to ask if she had any patients who might enjoy an animal visit, and learned that Carl had quietly passed away a few days after our visit with him. I later spoke to a hospice nurse, and she told me that Toby's visit had meant a lot to Carl, and that the staff was so glad that he had had an hour of happiness so close to his passing. I didn't know Carl before our visit, but in the short time we spent together with Toby, I felt that we had all become friends. I was reminded yet again how fragile is our time here on earth, and how precious the moments spent with our animal partners and hospice patients truly are.

Moments like these make all the socialization, obedience and Pet Partner training--and the sacrifice of resources and time--worthwhile. I thank God every day for my wonderful animal therapy partners, especially Toby, my sweet, gentle Sheltie.