This week my class read a story called Rosie the Visiting Dog. It featured a dog that works in hospitals and nursing homes by visiting patients before or after surgery and cheering them up. One of my teammates arranged for 3 therapy dogs from Edward Hospital to visit our students this morning and I was inspired!
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They gave an overview of how the dogs are trained for therapy and told some really touching stories about the impact they have on the patients. The handlers stressed the need for dogs with calm submissive temperaments. Of course I thought of my little Millie!
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She was the most submissive pup in our obedience class and she's very easy to train. So this might just be a new goal! Once she is one year old (in April) we can start going through the process of her becoming a therapy dog. I think it is worth a try... MANY dogs do not make it through the first step of the program (that's why they're always looking for new dogs), so who knows.... but I would LOVE to do this with Millie next summer!
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P.S. One of the dogs showed us how he "says a prayer" for the patients. It was ADORABLE! I already started training Millie to do this! HA ;)
