VS hone their skills in a calm environment before being able to work 90 minutes to a couple of hours a day making the visits that PCH’s Animal Assisted Therapy Program coordinator Mary Lou Jennings describes as “spontaneous” and “strategic.” Before rounds, Jennings and the medical staff discuss which young patients might benefit the most from a visit on a particular day. The patients become active, and the sooner they are active, the sooner they generally will be discharged. with odors, machines, and people that may Israel Primero needed to walk to get evseem strange to a child. But a therapy dog erything circulating and to digest the food can help bridge this strangeness across to he eats postsurgery. Israel is in control of familiarity. Hena, a Labrador-golden reHena’s leash, and his triever mix, received brother Marco pushes her certification as a Even a child behind the the IV pole as they therapy dog in 2005 and is one of about glass wall of an ICU room walk. The playrooms the children and dogs forty such dogs that can be given the option pass by are an added entice children out to use a remote control enticement to activity. of t he miasma of to power a vehicle on the Patient safety is the their hospital stay. A therapy animal in any other side of the glass for first goal, but the healing of therapy runs a setting must be well the dog to chase. close second. Even a behaved, responsive, child behind the glass and not aggressive. wall of an ICU room can be given the option All of the dogs in PCH’s program have exto use a remote control to power a vehicle perience in health-care settings such as longon the other side of the glass for the dog to term care facilities. This way, they become chase. “Therapy animals give patients a few desensitized to slippery tile floors and the minutes removed from this setting, or their beeps of medical equipment. The animals anxiety or pain,” Jennings says. “A patient can exercise their right to say no to the interaction, and at least they have had a feeling of control.” In the seven years Jennings has coordinated the program, she has had cats and a bunny helping children heal, but right now it is all doggie on the wall of pet therapists—Tiger the shih tzu, Queenie the Welsh corgi, Milo the Bouvier, Willie the standard poodle, Sam the keeshond, and Ranger the Bernese mountain breed are among the furry portraits. And, of course, there’s Hena. If you’d like to get involved in assisting the program, the inaugural Desert Dog Dash kicks off in July. Each of the dogs will have a fund-raising team that other dogs can join, and as the team runs farther, the donations grow. Look for a link on phoenixchildrens.com.
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