Facility partners pets with seniors

For many people, a family pet can offer companionship and unconditional love. But for the pets involved with animal-assisted therapy, they can offer so much more.

Maureen Kidd, who is the therapy dog coordinator at The Glen Retirement System, has been working at the facility for 13 years and said she knew right away they would be a good environment for therapy dogs.

“I came and met everyone at The Glen – the staff, the residents, and I fell in love,” Kidd said. “I went up there and brought my therapy dog, and they clearly loved animals there. They had a kitty cat sitting on the front sofa.”

Her team of two black labrador retrievers, Connor and Zipper, and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Bentley make daily rounds at The Glen, as well as numerous local hospitals visiting patients and children.

“We’re not-for-pro t, so we do a lot for community service,” she said. “Some of the really special things we’ve done is work with children at Shriners Hospital, assisting them while they’re learning how to walk with their new prosthesis. [The dogs] help encourage them in their walking.”

The dogs participate in both animalassisted interaction and animal-assisted therapy at The Glen.

“[Animal-assisted therapy] is fabulous, it’s very rewarding,” Kidd said. “There are certain goals that they have outlined, things they would like to do and meet that day. In our rehab, we have a hydraulic-lift table for the dogs [and they] have been taught ‘chair’ and ‘table,’ [to know to get up and lay down].

He knows the people are there for him.”

The patients work on movement and core strength by brushing the dog, and Kidd said it was very rewarding and the dogs loved it, too.

“Therapy animals are one of the more visible ways in which we have incorporated the feeling of home into our communities throughout the years,” said Rhonda G. Beauvais, president and chief executive of cer, in The Glen Views special edition for their Paws with Purpose program.

“We want to encourage familiarity and a general well-being,” Kidd said. “And [most have] said that it makes them feel good to see the dogs.”

The dogs bring a kind of simple joy that anyone can see, even in sometimes an unfortunate circumstance.

“In some places like memory care, where there’s not a lot of interaction because it’s hard for their words to come out, the expression is there [when the dogs come]. The smile will come out,” Kidd said. “I’ll have all the dogs lay in a pile on the oor and have a handler with every dog, but [the residents] will smile. It’s really nice and you can tell they really enjoy it.”

Kidd said she sees residents brighten up when the dogs come into their room.

There are even moments when the dogs are the only things that motivate some people into getting out of bed and going to the rehab facility. For some, the animals bring a comfort of home and for others it can be the unconditional love.

And even for the residents who aren’t interested, they seem to still bene t and enjoy from their presence.

“They come to the rehab table and they don’t mind brushing the dog, but some of them aren’t really into it,” Kidd said.

“Then I tell them that by working on the dog, you’re teaching him the good manners he needs to be able to help the children at Shriners. Then they really feel like they’re needed and important to the whole process.”

“If they’re interested, they are, and if they’re not, they’re not,” she said.

“However, even though those people who are not interested and maybe just don’t want to [physically touch the dogs] can use a long-handled brush to pet them.

And then others just like to watch, and they get to interact in a group setting.

We don’t care about them petting or touching the dogs; we just want them to enjoy us being there.”

“It’s nice to work with dogs every day, but it’s really the people,” Kidd said. “It’s the three things of the humananimal-human bond; the handler, the dog and the person. It’s watching the person and the dog interact, and the three of us having a moment. That’s a special moment.”

– Katie Ho

DID YOU KNOW?

More than just facilitating physical therapy, the dogs provide a sense of comfort and peace to some residents.