It all started with a few fish swimming along in a little tank,
likely oblivious to the intravenous tubes and catheters surrounding
them, but nevertheless gaining the attention of one UCLA nurse.
Working at the UCLA Medical Center, K.C. Cole wasn’t
impressed by the bright colors of the scales or the easy-going
floating of the fish. But she did notice a change in her patients
““ with the presence of the fish came decreased blood
pressure, increased respiration and a general calm.
Eleven years later, the fish tank still sits in a hospital room
at the UCLA Medical Center, and along with the fish are a slew of
dogs and their trainers who roam the halls and corridors of the
hospital creating a calming effect in many of the places they
go.
Whether it’s a golden retriever or a chocolate lab, the
dogs, which are part of the People Animal Connection at the
hospital, are highly trained to provide a kind of therapy for
patients admitted for everything from strokes to traumatic
accidents.
“Our goal is to make the patients feel comfortable. …
You have to get them to talk about other things because
you’re trying to get them away from the hospital. The dogs
create conversation. They open doors,” said Jack Barron,
director of the People Animal Connection.
Barron, who has worked with the program for a number of years
and became its director in 2003, has had firsthand experience
taking his own dogs, Sammy and Joey, on the visits that bring the
therapy dogs straight to the patients’ hospital beds and onto
their laps for 20-minute sessions where patients lovingly pet and
cuddle the trained canines.
The visits with patients begin well before the dogs first prance
into the hospital rooms, and require rigorous testing and
approximately eight hours of classroom time for the dogs, and 16
hours for their human trainers.
Barron himself became certified though the Delta Society, a
non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., that awards
accreditation for therapy dog programs, and Barron now tests for
behavior aptitude and teaches therapy dogs to handle the basic
commands of the hospital program.
“It’s a very tough certification process. He is not
here because he is beautiful, it’s because he’s passed
a lot of tests,” Barron said.
The tests look to see how potential therapy dogs would respond
to the unique situations of a hospital environment, including
reactions to wheelchairs, IV tubes, beeps and “clumsy
petting.”
Barron describes “clumsy petting” as the sort that
can occur when patients are really rough, and unfamiliar with
petting in the normal fashion. He teaches the dogs to deal with
such situations by petting them with his elbows.
Over 28,000 hospital visits have been made by the People Animal
Connection. And with 30 dog-trainer teams working in 15 wings,
there are plenty of opportunities for the patients to meet and
interact with the dogs.
Renne Kaplan of Venice and her golden retriever Jackson have
worked with the People Animal Connection for a number of years and
now primarily make visits in 7 East, or the orthopedic and
post-trauma ward.
“I’ve gone into rooms where it’s a long-stay
patient and I can tell the family was fighting and the patient was
screaming. In 10 minutes it’s all gone, it all gets
diffused,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan, who describes her first time making a visit “like
driving a car, but all the parts don’t work,” spends
hours getting Jackson ready for his visits. He gets a full groom
and bath the day before a visit and another groom the day of.
“You have to recognize you can’t just go into a room
and have the dog jump on the bed. The dogs have to know their
place; they have to register where they are. When they’re
relaxed they’re like a big golden blanket,” Barron
said.
In addition to the intensive grooming are the rules and
procedures trainers must constantly think about. Trainers must set
a barrier of white sheets between the patient and therapy dog and
offer antibacterial gel to anyone who wants to touch the dog.
And there are many people other than patients who want to pet
the dogs. Kaplan says that she is constantly stopped by nurses and
doctors who like to take a few minutes out their hectic schedule to
pet the lovable dogs.
Kaplan says that for her, one out of 10 visits are
“magic.” She vividly remembers one when she visited a
diabetes patient who just had a kidney transplant. The visit went
well, but she was struck months later when a woman stopped her in
the hospital and thanked her for making the visit.
The woman remembered Kaplan from a picture taken at the time of
the visit that was used for the patient’s Christmas
cards.
“It was an incredible feeling, that this picture was being
sent all over the world,” Kaplan said.
Nina Lee, a resident of Century City, is one of the many
patients at the UCLA Medical Center who was visited by Jackson,
Kaplan’s golden retriever.
When speaking about the dog, Lee gushed with emotion, calling
him “the best medicine” and saying she wished she could
take him to the salon to get her hair the same color as
Jackson’s coat.
“Jackson and I bonded. He didn’t want to the leave
the last time, and I didn’t want him to go,” she
said.
Other patients have also described the visits as magical, saying
the therapy dogs remind them of their own dogs waiting for them at
home.
“It’s like so serene, like fishing. … I had a lot
of anxiety when I was in here, and I can’t wait until I get
out and see my own dog,” said Cameron Peterson, who lives in
the San Fernando Valley and was also visited by Jackson.
Therapy dogs can also help in the rehabilitation process.
One particular team makes regular visits with patients who have
had strokes and are doing physical therapy. The team gives patients
Cheerios and makes them stretch to give them to the dog.
“At first I questioned why I was here, and then I realized
I’m here for the patient and his family. I could see the
benefits for the family,” Barron said of his first few
visits, which involved dealing with some of the sickest patients at
the medical center.
One of the greatest challenges that the People Animal
Connection, a wholly donor-funded organization, faces is a lack of
funding.
“Our biggest problem, unfortunately, is that we live by
donations,” Barron said.
“We’d love to endow the program to one of the Oprah
Winfreys or Jay Lenos of Los Angeles.”
The program is constantly receiving donations, with some people
even leaving the People Animal Connection money in their wills, but
it nevertheless lives year by year.
“In such a populous area, hardly anyone knows that
we’re out here and are totally donor supported,” Barron
said.