Transforming Lives — Both Human & Canine

Nancy Horbert says she loves to see the joy her dogs bring to the faces of folks of all ages and backgrounds and the way they connect man and man’s best friend in meaningful relationships.

Since founding a Highland Canine Connect (HCC) chapter in Wesley Chapel, Nancy has seen the benefits it brings between dogs and those in need of the special attention canines can provide.

Based in Harmony, North Carolina, HCC was started in 2019 as a non-profit organization that works with communities “to create fulfilling and engaging connections between dogs and people in need,” according to the website. The Wesley Chapel HCC is the only other chapter established besides the home facility North Carolina.

Nancy, HCC Wesley Chapel program manager, runs the organization with the help of her daughter, Brittany Mojica, a dog trainer with Highland Canine Training, Tampa. Brittany went to Highland Canine Training School

“When I retired, that’s what I really wanted to do and since my daughter had trained for a long time for Highland Canine Training and 4 years ago they started a nonprofit, I went up and asked how they would feel about me starting a branch here and they loved the idea,” says Horbert, who lives in Wesley Chapel with her husband, Everett and three HCC-trained dogs -- parti poodle Uggy, 7, Remmie, a 7-year-old labradoodle and Dixie, 7, a Labrador retriever.

Together, the mother and daughter HCC Wesley Chapel team, coordinates the visits and outings of 15 therapy dog teams, owners and dogs who have gone through the American Kennel Club training. Horbert, who volunteers her time wit HCC, says she attracts volunteers mostly via word-of-mouth and for about six years prior to starting the chapter, was already taking therapy dogs to meet students at Pepin Academy New Port Richey and to Sunrise of Pasco County domestic and sexual violence center.

The end of the 2021-22 school year, Horbert, Mojica and team members have been taking their dogs throughout March, April and May to meet students during lunchtime at Tampa Preparatory School and recently began visiting the Wesley Chapel New River Library. There, children can take part in a program where they can read to the HCC dogs.

“The kids can come over and pet the dogs and just help them kind of relax, decompress,” she says. “We talk to them about the differences between service dogs and therapy dogs and the kids can spend time with them and pet them.”

As some examples of the HCC dogs’ impacts, Horbert cites Focus Academy, Tampa, where a young girl spoke to Uggy. The school’s speech therapist said the girl usually spoke with a stutter but while talking to the dog, she spoke clearly.

Horbert cites one of the main examples of the benefits of HCC and why she decided to get involved once she retired was due to an impactful personal experience. Prior to forming HCC, while she worked at Tampa Prep, she and Tampa Prep Business Manager Steve Garrett started taking their dogs Sundays as therapy to St. Joseph’s Hospital, Tampa. During a visit in 2014, a nurse asked them to go to a room where a lady in her 30s lay unresponsive with feeding tube who was going to be transferred to a facility. The dogs were brought in and as they walked around the woman’s bed, she turned her head to look at the dogs.

“The nurse was almost in tears, she said she hadn’t responded to anything,” she says.

The dogs were placed on the bed for the patient to see them and Horbert says, “She stared at them, and the nurse said is there any way you can come during the week and my boss said, ‘Sure, we’re going to take the dogs with us to school on Wednesdays and we’ll come during lunch on Wednesdays’.”

That continued for six weeks, and the woman started calling the dogs “babies.” By that Christmas, the woman’s feeding tube was being taken out and Horbert says she walked out of the hospital a week later. “

“Had that nurse not asked us to come in that day, who knows what would’ve happened, for some reason, the dogs got her attention,” says Horbert. “I knew from that experience, how much a dog could change somebody’s life and that’s what made me want to work with the therapy dogs once I retired.”

In her work with HCC Wesley Chapel, Horbert receives requests for visits by dogs and their owners-handlers from libraries, schools, daycares --- and other educational and social services facilities, such as Joshua House, Lutz. As long as HCC Wesley Chapel dogs and volunteers are invited, they go.

“When we go to these places, it’s really meant to help people decompress, to de-stress. It’s amazing… how comforting it all is,” says Horbert, a native of Kingston, New York who lived in various countries as the daughter of a U.S. Army officer. “Giving back to the community is something my daughter and I think is very important.”

Mojica, who lives in Wesley Chapel with her husband and daughter, has had about 14 years working among those in the autism community. She trained an autism-assistance service dog about four years ago and donated it to the Sean Bartell Foundation -- a Wesley Chapel-based cause established to help students and teachers excel in the classroom -- which allowed parents with autistic children the chance via a raffle to win an $18,000 service dog. The proceeds went to the foundation.

“It’s important we’re able to give back to the community and we love helping families in need and being able to give back to the community that has given so much us over the years,” she says. “It’s good for the dogs, their owners and everyone involved.”

Overall, Horbert says she hopes having a Wesley Chapel branch of Highland Canine Connect will help raise more money to provide more facility dogs in the Tampa area. She says in the future, she’d like to increase the number of therapy dogs, depending on how much is received in donations.

“It’s an amazing experience and watching the smiles on people’s faces, especially the children when they interact with the dogs – it’s priceless,” she says.

For information, 813-810-9271; www.highlandcanineconnect.org