A group of certified mental health professionals has been making rounds throughout the region.
They provide companionship and emotional support to people of all ages and backgrounds who are dealing with anxiety, depression, stressful life situations, health crises, and loneliness.
One of those certified professionals is Boomer, a friendly, jet-black Newfoundland who is six years old.
Another is Clint, a four-year-old, 120-pound Chesapeake Bay Retriever, whose soft brown eyes almost exactly match his coat.
Both are local therapy dogs.
“Sometimes we get calls the day of, or within a couple of hours, we’ll get a call from the hospital saying, we’ve had an emergency or we have a crisis here. Can we get a dog in here?” said Liz Pagel, owner and handler of three certified therapy dogs, including Boomer.
The local program is offered through OSF HealthCare.
“We have a wonderful coordinator out at OSF,” Pagel said. “In order to become a therapy dog that’s certified and insured, you need to go through a reputable program. We go through Alliance of Therapy Dogs and they have a requirement that you have to be certified through a medical facility.”
Once certified, dogs that enjoy working in a hospital environment continue to volunteer there. Like if a child is fearful about getting some bloodwork done, they can request a canine companion through Galesburg Therapy Dogs.
The dogs provide services throughout OSF Saint Mary Medical Center in Galesburg.
“When we visit with people in the ER, you can see on the vitals machines, you can see that the body calms down immediately. The stress starts to leave the body. With small children, when they have tragedies, sometimes they can’t articulate what they’re feeling and what they’re experiencing,” Pagel said. “We have found that they’ll draw pictures. They’ll sit with the dogs and draw pictures of what they’re working through and what they’re sorting out.”
Pagel said therapy dogs help care providers, too.
“The nurses will get down on the floor and say, I can feel my blood pressure lowering. I can feel the stress and tension leaving my body,” she said.
A chemical reaction
Clint the Chessie just got back from a yellow ribbon event in Iowa for servicemen who were being deployed.
Owner and handler Deb Jackson said he was very well received by the soldiers and their families.
Jackson founded the local therapy dog program around ten years ago with a pit bull named Georgia.
She said what happens to humans when they interact with dogs is a chemical reaction.
“The mother that’s nursing her child releases an oxytocin. You release that same chemical when you’re looking into the eyes of a dog. So it’s been proven that there is a reaction when you’re going through pet therapy,” Jackson said.
Galesburg’s therapy dogs are busy. In addition to hospitals, they go to schools, nursing homes, colleges, and mental health fairs throughout the region, and beyond.
They’ve been out to Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg.
They sometimes go on end-of-life calls.
“We’ve been called in by the family and asked, can you put the dog next to the bed so that my family member can touch their head or can feel the fur? It brings such a sense of relief to the families, and I’m sure to the person, even though they can’t always articulate that,” Pagel said.
The right dog for the job
Part of the job for Pagel and Jackson is deciding which dogs are right for which situations.
In addition to Boomer and Clint, there are a number of other certified therapy dogs in Galesburg — Pomeranians, Basset Hounds, Beagles, and more.
“Georgia the little pit bull is perfectly happy upside down for six hours and not moving. Clint likes movement. And so you do have to kind of gauge,” Jackson said. “We just got back from reading at a grade school. I would never have taken Clint because he wouldn’t have done that. Georgia was upside down for the whole day being read to.”
So Pagel and Jackson have a core group of people — and their dogs — who are reachable on short notice.
When the request comes in, they send out a message and say: Here’s the need, and it’s a pressing one. Who can get out there?
“When I’m looking at my own dogs and choosing, I really kind of look at the situation. Ben does really, really well for going into situations to sit and engage and behave,” Pagel said. “He’s done a lot of work in the hospital, probably more work than any of our dogs.”
Jane Carlson
/
TSPR
Perfect therapy dogs
Recently a local school reached out to Pagel and Jackson saying they had a mental health crisis, were out of options, and needed help. They asked to have dogs sent over.
Pagel said whether the dogs are meeting with two people or 50, there’s a ripple effect.
“You could visit one person for five minutes and they could go home and it could have changed their entire month” she said.
The dogs are trained to be patient, gentle, and comforting.
Just this spring, Galesburg Therapy Dogs have been to Knox College, Monmouth College, Western Illinois University, and the University of Illinois.
“There’s so much pressure, so much pressure right now to be the best at what we’re doing, to wear the right things, to speak correctly and not to say the wrong thing, especially in group settings,” Pagel said. “Every single university we’ve been to, the kids say the same thing. And that’s that the dogs don’t judge them.”
Pagel said therapy dogs are different than service dogs. The latter are trained to be highly obedient and handler-focused.
But they want therapy dogs to wag their tails.
They want them wiggling their bodies and being excited to approach people and engage with them.
“I really think that that’s important for the public to know that you can do it. You can do this. If you have a friendly dog that is okay in a variety of environments that doesn’t get nervous in new situations, call and ask. Check it out, try it out, and see if this is for you. Because we’re not looking for perfect dogs, we’re looking for teams that are engaged and that are excited about what they do. And that actually makes a perfect therapy dog,” Pagel said.
Both Pagel and Jackson serve as tester observers for certifying therapy dogs and their handlers in the Galesburg area.
For more information, visit Galesburg Therapy Dogs or the Alliance of Therapy Dogs.
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