Comforting Therapy Dogs are our September 10, 2017 Pups of the week

With Irma threatening the lives of our friends, with ceaseless threats of war occurring around the world, with new concerns continually being discovered, and the over riding emotion in the world being worry, it is time for the planet to get its own therapy dog.

It is no wonder that people realize that we dogs have a greater purpose than to hunt and retrieve balls.  We are here to help humans, and we are just beginning to reach our potential.

An increasing amount of people, businesses are recruiting therapy dogs to help overly stressed out humans deal with the insanity of their lives.

There are few places more stressful than the airport.  At LAX hurried passengers, and harried passengers can lower their heart rates and their blood pressure by meeting the emissaries of the Pets Unstressing Passengers (or PUP) program, who are walking through the airport with their human companions to meet, greet, and calm passengers as they wait to board their plane.   Parents traveling with nervous children find the program especially comforting for their young travelers.  The program is expanding to other airports as we prove that a good rub behind the ears is good for both the scratcher and the scratchee.

But it is not just at airports where our unique skills are being put to use.  College students, both freshman, and returning students were greeted by therapy dogs to calm their nerves and help transition to college lives.  The dogs will return to help the students before midterms and finals.  We dogs are helping build the future leaders of the country one decreased heartbeat at a time.

Humans who find themselves in highly stressful jobs, such as 911 operators, are getting visits from therapy dogs to help them do their jobs calmly and more efficiently.  The next time your human needs to call 9-11, they should be comforted by the fact that the person answering the phone is listening intently and calmly handling the situation thanks to a delightful dog.

There are dozens of other places where we work to keep humans calm and focused:  Nursing homes, hospitals, libraries, and schools are just some places where dogs are making new friends and bringing them to a peaceful state.  Of course, dogs never meet strangers; they meet friends they have not encountered yet.

With the horrible storms that are ruining properties and lives ravishing the country, I am sure we dogs will be called into new situations to help, and we will proudly do it because all we need to do is serve man.

We have a new motto:  “Wherever there is a man who is ready to cry, wherever a senior needs a reason not to die, wherever someone is struggling to get through the day, look for us dogs, we won’t be far away.