

	Featured Story		Dog of the Day

Jasmine

Please Note: The dog in the accompanying photograph is the subject of the story, but the person pictured is probably not the patient in the story.

I have been interested in training dogs and in using dogs to help people since I was young. I knew as soon as I got Jasmine that when she was old enough I wanted her to be a therapy dog. Having had another Sheltie that had “issues” with wheels, children, strange noises, and other things, I was determined that Jasmine would be different. I exposed her to everything I could think of from an early age, and took her into as many weird and different situations as possible. We went to malls; we walked on crowded Montana Avenue; we went to parks. We watched skateboarders; we played with other dogs we met walking, and we talked to children in strollers. After all this conditioning, along with a steady temperament to start with, she is now unfazed by just about everything, which is very helpful for visiting in hospitals. Jasmine passed her testing with Love on 4 Paws when she was only nine months old!

One of my most memorable visits with Jasmine was with an elderly woman. I almost passed by the room because I saw that a nurse was in there and the woman was clearly very agitated. The nurse saw me as I stuck my head in the door and motioned me to come over with Jasmine. As soon as I put Jasmine on the bed, the woman sat up, hugged Jasmine to her and began rocking back and forth, clutching Jasmine and muttering to herself. Jasmine, who is full of energy and doesn’t sit still for long, didn’t move a muscle! The woman began stroking Jasmine and talking to her, although I couldn’t make out what she was saying. After about five minutes, we were able to get the woman to lie back down, although she kept her hand on Jasmine’s back. Good as gold, as though she knew, Jasmine still didn’t move. We stayed there, the nurse on one side of the bed, me on the other and Jasmine on the bed for about 15 or 20 minutes, until finally the woman fell asleep. The nurse told me that the woman had been agitated all day and nothing they had done had calmed her down, until her visit with Jasmine.