two spontaneous, unconditional-loving, energy-changing, orange-and-white dogs charged into my world in 1999 and brought their blonde Jersey girl owner with them, my life changed.
The dogs’ names were Teigh and Belle. They were happy, enthusiastic, energetic Brittanys who loved everyone they met. I didn’t know it at the time and would have laughed if anyone had said it to me, but they were going to teach me about life.
The girl’s name was Cherilyn, and she was a graduate student at Seattle University pursuing her master’s degree in theology. Her thesis was going to be on animal-assisted therapy. She had heard me mention therapy dogs on the Westminster telecast and asked a mutual friend to introduce us so we could talk about therapy dogs. She had just started visiting Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center with Teigh, and she was competing with Belle at dog shows.
I was smitten by all three of them, and soon we were together. Cheri continued to pursue her degree, and I often served as the handler for Teigh and Belle, her “demo dogs,” in her presentations. I learned a lot from her as she worked her way through academia. Actually, I learned a lot about myself, as well—that was the life-changing part of the deal.
While all of this was going on, I still had my own public relations business in Seattle, and one of my clients was Delta Society, the world’s leading organization for therapy dogs. A great client, a nice fit, and Cheri was a big help in handling the production of their Beyond Limits Awards, which were presented annually to the therapy dog and service dog teams of the year.
I went with Cheri a few times on her therapy visits with Teigh, and I helped her with presentations at Seattle University and Providence Hospital. I thought I would try to become trained and registered with Belle as a therapy dog team as a way to learn about animal-assisted therapy. I thought that I could support Cheri and her work if I was involved myself, and I thought that we could do good things for people in need. But, admittedly, while helping people in need was a positive thing, at the outset my intent was mostly to learn about the work that my client did and to be supportive of my wife and her studies—what was to become her life’s work. Belle and I went through the training class and passed.
I did some visiting with Cheri at some of the places she had been working, but after watching her in action and hearing some of her stories about her other experiences, I thought I should see what it was like on my own with Belle. The first visit that Belle and I did was to an extended care facility in north Seattle. Visits to extended care facilities (they used to be called nursing homes) can be somewhat uncomplicated, as the people there are relatively quiet and the situation is not too stressful for the dog or the handler. I thought this would be the perfect maiden voyage for us.
The administrator greeted me, and I introduced him to Belle. She gave him the standard Brittany greeting: the butt wiggle, the lean-in, and the wagging tail. He loved her. Of course. I was certain that she would get the same reaction from the people we were about to visit, and I was anxious to get started.
The administrator walked us down the hall. He told me that he was bringing me first to Richard, a long-term care patient who had a photo in his room of himself with a Brittany. However, Richard was battling the early stages of dementia, the administrator told me, and I shouldn’t expect too much from him. Richard also believed that his family had simply dumped him in the facility to live out his days. “He’s not happy to be here,” said the administrator. “He’s rarely spoken and rarely smiled since he arrived here some three months ago.”
With that information, Belle and I entered Richard’s room. I was a little anxious and was hoping for just about any reaction from him—a smile, maybe a few words. We walked in, Belle tugging me along with her tail wagging and her body twisting in that Brittany kind of way. She apparently had not heard anything that the administrator had told me, and she was ready to make a new friend.
Instantly, we got the smile—and then some. Richard’s smile lit up the room, his face beaming, tears forming in his eyes. All at once, he became animated and vocal.
“Come here, you knucklehead,” he called to Belle, slapping his thigh. She jumped on his lap and he hugged her as the administrator’s eyes widened at this first show of emotion. I watched without speaking, but I was thinking, Geez, we’re already breaking the rules by letting her jump on his lap.
I decided, given what I had been told coming in, that this was a rule that could be broken for Richard. The interaction was exciting to watch, actually.
By the way he was talking to her, I quickly realized that Richard thought Belle was his dog. He confirmed that when he said to me, “Son, will you take care of her after I die?” When his tears started flowing, so did mine.
Belle could feel what was happening, and she was loving it. Here she was—the dog who runs through my house at about 40 miles an hour, the dog who chases pigeons, squirrels, and her brother throughout our urban neighborhood, now just patiently resting her head on Richard’s lap—looking him right in those tear-filled eyes.
When it was time to move on, Richard gave Belle a big hug, some more pets, and said good-bye. He was smiling. He was happy. Maybe just for that moment, but that’s the moment we have, the moment we want, and the moment we contribute to.
We wandered through the facility and had a couple more visits. Belle stuck her face onto the bed of another man, who was bedridden but smiling. She sat on a chair and went eye-to-eye with a woman who produced a smile that she apparently had never given in this place before. She lay on a bed next to another woman who couldn’t talk.
On the drive home, I realized that now I got it. Richard and those other people we had visited—we had made their day. Had we changed their lives? Well, at least for that day, we certainly had.
Eventually, I passed the evaluation with Teigh, and Cheri passed with Belle. I was ready to set out on my own with Teigh and Belle. I had lost a few friends from the dog show world to AIDS in the past ten years, so I thought I would volunteer in their memory at Bailey-Boushay House in Seattle, an AIDS hospice.
I understood the basics about hospices: that they are administering palliative care, and the idea is that they are helping people deal with the end of their lives. I really hadn’t been around a lot of death, and while I wasn’t reluctant to do what I could to help, it was going to be a new experience for me.
I came away from the volunteer orientation believing that Bailey-Boushay was good at this, but I was anxious to see the reality versus the classroom. To me, death was always sad; here, they were trying to show that passing peacefully could perhaps ease some of that sadness.
On our first day, Teigh and I showed up and went right to the nurses’ station. It seemed a little quiet, almost grim, but this came as no surprise. As soon as one of the nurses saw Teigh, she broke into a big smile, dropped to her knees, and started talking to him.
“Hey buddy, how are you?” Teigh lay down and rolled over onto his back, ready to make some new friends. “What’s your name?”
“He’s Teigh, and I’m David,” I said. “This is our first visit here.”
“Well, Teigh and David, we are so glad that you are here,” she said. I could feel that her remark was more than just some platitude. Another nurse joined in with the stomach rubs while several others watched and smiled, stopping what they were doing at the moment. We would always be greeted in this fashion at B-B. After a few visits, I could understand why.
People were dying there every day. I would come back every Tuesday and be unable to find one or two people
