Loki has more things to do than I do!

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Obviously this isn't quiet true since I am there with him but still this dog's calander is booking up quick!

Loki and I have been pretty busy with our therapy work. We visit an observation unit at the University of Michigan hospital twice a month and he has been loving that! It's a low key floor with patients that are all stable so a calmer atmosphere for a new therapy dog is a perfect mix. One really cool thing we got to see was a young woman was under observation for an uncontrollably high heart rate. When we walked in her room, her resting heart rate was 140 beats per minute. She was upset and her nurse gladly invited us in. While she was petting Loki the nurse drew our attention to the monitor and we noticed that her heart rate had dropped to 80 beats per minute! Once she noticed it started to climb back up to around 100 but for that brief moment when she was distracted her nurse and I just smiled at each other. I think most times the proof that pet therapy is so helpful isn't so obvious in a technical sense but it was very cool to see a monitored persons physiologic changes to hanging out with a therapy dog! We also got a chance to visit the U of M college students several times at the end of their semester to "de stress" them. This was very fun and there were about 7 dogs per visit total so Loki got to see all of furry and non-furry friends at one time!

What's really cool though is that a state of Michigan inpatient psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents contacted Therapaws of Michigan, our local group under Alliance of Therapy Dogs, requesting a team to start a brand new program with them, they recommended Loki and I. We have been working since January to write policies and start a program. This past month and a half has been drafts going back and forth, meetings, emails, blah blah blah! But finally the end is in sight! This will all finally come together and the first visit will be April 2nd making Loki the first therapy dog in a Michigan government operated hospital! He will be working kids anywhere from 2-17yrs and all with different backgrounds ranging from special needs and up to children who have experienced all sorts of trauma and/or abuse.

On a totally separate note (but I think just as cool!) I recently completed my training for Critial Incident Stress Managment (CISM) through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) and will be joining the county's Crisis Responce Team who is also interested in possibly bringing in therapy dogs to help in crisis situations. This is obviously a long way off since they have an extremely structured model for diffusing and debriefing in a crisis- but still sooooooooo cool that this could open up opportunities for therapy dogs. The county's team is extremely well established and the coordinator of the team was one of the key coordinators for Michigan's crisis responce to 9-11. She and I met and realized we are practically neighbors and she is extremely interested in learning more about therapy dog work and how the Crisis Response Team could possibly work with therapy dogs.

There have been so many cool and neat things and people I have met and been able to be a part of all because of my doodle dog! I think until you have a dog and get involved in the "dog community" (like DK) or you community you, don't realize all of the cool things you've been missing out on all this time! I say that because I try to explain these things to non-dog/doodle people and it's like I was speaking in German or something. I usually get a polite "oh that's so cool!"'but you can tell they have no clue what your talking about. However when I chat about these things at the dog park with other therapy dog handlers or just other responsible dog owners, they A understand the work that goes into it but B also have cool and amazing stories to share about their "doggy adventures". I posted something similar to this in the Therapy dog group but wanted to add it on my blog just to have as part of Loki's journey through therapy dog work :)


Cheers all!

Jess, Loki, and Moose!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Enjoyed this blog. Wow, you guys are busy. Congratulations and keep up the good work!

[Julie, Eloise & Beasley]

What a great blog, and congrats to both you and Loki!  You're already doing great work (the heart rate story brought a little tear to my eye) and it sounds like there are many other fantastic things in the works.  The healing power of these guys is just amazing and inspiring.  (And then there's Miss Beasley, who I think gives me high blood pressure a lot of the time, lol! :) ) 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Congratulations to Loki (and you) for becoming the first state therapy dog.  What an honor and really very cool!  CISM adding therapy dogs to their support team is a fabulous idea in my book. I hope it happens sooner rather than later and that both Loki and Moose can be part of it.  Again, Congratulations.

[BG and Gavin]

You and Loki are breaking ground all over the place.Congratulations to you both. You obviously are very committed to helping others in need. A round of apawlause!!

[Linda, Charlie Brown and Beau]

Jessica ~ I so enjoyed reading about you and Loki's hard work and how you are making a difference for others in your community.   

[Jenny and Cooper]

Wow Jess! That's really impressive! I would love to meet Loki so he can relieve me of my stress! Somehow Cooper is doing the opposite to me :P hahaha don't tell him I said that. ;) Anyway, congratulations to both you and Loki for all the success in your therapy dog journey. I hope someday Cooper will get there too :)

[Kaitlin and Ludo]

What a cool blog!  You and Loki must truly make an amazing therapy team and how lucky the therapy community is to have a team willing to do more than just visits, but writing policies and developing programs.  I'm sure it'll be so rewarding in the end.  

And the crisis training sounds so awesome!  I'm going to check that out and see if my community has a crisis response team that I could get involved in, it sounds really cool!