Angel on a Leash (4 page)

After working our way through the staff, we would have quite a variety of patients waiting for us. They all had different stories, and many of them wanted to share those stories with us, perhaps in kind of a cleansing process as they were preparing to die.

Their stories weren't what mattered to Teigh or to me. We were there to get some smiles and some pets for Teigh, whether from a well-to-do gay man, a tough street person, or a woman dying of cancer. Teigh would crawl into bed with some of them, sit in a chair next to the bed with others, or just hang quietly in my arms. Already I found myself wanting to be just like Teigh, with his measured enthusiasm and his ability to draw out some difficult smiles.

Cheri soon finished her master's degree and was ready for her residency at Swedish. About that time, the American Kennel Club (AKC) asked if I would do some work for them as a public relations consultant and public spokesperson. The AKC was headquartered in New York City but told me that I could do the job from Seattle. We made a trip to New York and, while we were there, Cheri was offered a residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/ Weill Cornell Medical Center. We decided that we would move to New York.

We were sad to leave Seattle but excited about the professional opportunities in New York. And out in New Jersey, Emily, my mother-in-law, was happy to get her daughter back home.

After a two-year residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell, Cheri spent a year as the chaplain and director of pastoral care at Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center in New York. Then, Ronald McDonald House asked her to be its Catholic chaplain and director of family support. That turned out to be a life-changing offer for both of us. Ronald McDonald House is a home-away-from-home for families who would come to New York from all over the world. Here, they hoped to find answers for their children who were fighting battles with cancer and being treated at New York hospitals such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering, NewYork-Presbyterian, and New York University.

Meanwhile, the Westminster Kennel Club asked me to come and work for them. I had done their TV commentary on USA Network since 1990, so we were not strangers. They created a full-time position for me as director of communications, and I moved a few blocks south on Madison Avenue from the AKC to Westminster in 2003.

The following year, I suggested that Westminster consider creating and supporting a charitable activity that combined dogs with children—something to bring the club into a new part of the New York City community. We were very active in a number of dog-related charities, but as the kennel club of New York, we could do more. I suggested a therapy dog program at the NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, something that would bring us into the area of helping humans. I also suggested the name “Angel On A Leash,” and we all agreed that it was a perfect description. So we were off and running, soon adding Ronald McDonald House New York and Providence Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, as Angel facilities.

Anyone who shares his or her life with a dog understands intuitively the magic that dogs bring into our lives. I know what my dogs do for me, and I know what they do for others—no one needs to tell me why or how. Lately, though, science is catching up to our intuition. We are learning the physiology behind it all. Studies have shown that when you interact with a dog, whether it's petting a dog or just looking at a dog and smiling, it increases the flow of endorphins, the “good” hormones, and that makes you feel better. When you feel better, your blood pressure goes down and your heart rate goes down.

We call it the therapeutic touch. There are more and more studies being published every day that back this up. Here are some, as reported by Delta Society:

•  A 2005 study by the American Heart Association showed that heart patients visited by therapy dogs experienced a reduction in stress levels.

•  A 2004 study by Rebecca Johnson, PhD, RN, of the University of Missouri-Columbia Center for the Study of Animal Wellness, showed that when a human pets a dog, it launches a release of hormones such as beta-endorphin, prolactin, dopamine, and oxytocin, all associated with good health. This was the first time that a therapeutic relationship between animals and humans had been scientifically measured.

•  An earlier study at the State University of New York at Buffalo by Dr. Karen Allen evaluated forty-eight stockbrokers who were taking medication for hypertension. The study found that the brokers who were given a pet saw their stress levels drop significantly, and half of them were able to go off their medication.

•  Studies reported in the
American Journal of Cardiology
in 2003 found that pet owners have shorter hospital stays, make fewer doctor visits, and take less medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol that those who do not own pets.

•  The Chimo Project in Alberta, Canada, compared animal-assisted therapy with traditional therapy for patients in treatment for depression and anxiety in a twenty-seven-month project that began in 2001. The patients who met with therapists who used dogs in their sessions looked forward to therapy more, felt more comfortable talking to the therapists, and felt that they performed better at home and school than patients receiving traditional therapy. Patients who had pets were less depressed or anxious at the outset and showed lower scores on the depression severity scale after therapy than those who did not own pets.

But I found that it still is more than science and physiology. It's spirituality, too. Dogs are faithful friends, gifts from whomever or wherever you believe they come from. They are blessings, and we give thanks for our blessings by sharing them with others.

About the time that Cheri came into my life and brought me Teigh and Belle, I read
Tuesdays with Morrie,
the great book by Mitch Albom. Mitch was a sports-writer from Detroit who rediscovered one of his college professors, Morrie, who was in the last months of his life. The book tells of a series of visits between the two men in which Morrie shares his life lessons.

Morrie talked about devoting yourself to loving others, devoting yourself to the community around you, and devoting yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. With all of that, Morrie said that you should choose to live a life that matters, offering to others what you have to give—specifically love and compassion. I never got to meet Morrie, but I did read the book. And just as good, I had Teigh and Belle to teach me about unconditional love. They helped me choose what I believe to be a life that matters. Teigh and Belle changed my life.

Their spontaneity and total honesty might just be what makes dogs so good at therapy work. Many of the patients we visit have to live their lives in the moment because, sadly, that's all that they have. But that's perfect for the dogs because they live their lives in the moment, too. And it's perfect for our visits because we visit in the moment.

Perfect.

“ Therapy is about the dog and the patient, not about the handler. ”

Stay Out of Their Way

I
believe that good therapy dogs are born, not made. It is mostly a personality and temperament thing. They don't have to be a particular breed; a therapy dog can be any breed or a mixed breed. While some breeds are inherently better at it than others, it is still an individual thing that is also dependent on the handler.

Therapy dogs need to have positive, happy, accepting personalities. Sure, they need some basic obedience training, but more important, they have to be able to tolerate and withstand, with help from their handlers, loud noises and awkward situations. They have to enjoy attention and being around people, but not necessarily all people. Some therapy dogs enjoy rambunctious kids, while some of them prefer more sedate seniors. Some of them love lying quietly with patients on their beds, and some of them need to chase a ball and roll over to have their stomachs rubbed.

The human half of the therapy dog team—and it is important to remember that it is a team—can mess things up. It can come from trying too hard, from being too protective, or from pushing a dog into a situation that he doesn't like. Or it can just be because the person doesn't get it. Therapy is about the dog and the patient, not about the handler. In that sense, it's very similar to what I always say about handlers in the dog show ring—the best handlers are almost invisible. That doesn't mean that they don't have a presence and an important role, but the best therapy dog handlers are guiding, not leading, and protecting, not pushing.

Angel On A Leash was a subject for a piece on the
Today Show
a couple of years ago. It was a wonderful story that was reported by Jill Rappaport, featuring interviews and video from Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and from Ronald McDonald House, and closing with Teigh, Belle, and me in the studio.

Host Meredith Vieira asked me, “David, when you're out there doing your thing with your dogs, what is going through your mind? What's the most important thing that you are thinking about?”

That was an easy answer.

“Just stay out of their way,” I said.