Helping hands for therapeutic paws

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Domesticated animals have been a boon for mankind throughout history. One of the constants has been the dog. They’ve guarded man’s families and livestock, have searched for the lost in the woods and those buried in rubble.

They are also a viable therapeutic modality. It’s long been known that petting an animal, a dog or a cat, can help bring down a person’s high blood pressure, but there’s much more.

Blythe Lundstrom is the director of community relations for Paws for People, a pet-assisted visitation volunteer service based in Delaware. She said the pet therapy is “a diversion to someone’s stay [in a health facility]. It’s also comforting.”

It’s a way to ease and comfort people with various ailments or who just want a calming diversion in their day. One area where Paws helps out is with children who have reading or speech problems.

“It’s calming. If children are reading to a dog, they don’t get judged or ridiculed. We have stutterers that stop stuttering when they’re reading to a dog. It’s a comforting, warm, gentle and affectionate pet therapy,” she said

Lundstrom added that Paws therapy teams — the dog with its owner — work with students at the University of Delaware to help them de-stress by giving them a calming break from their studies.

The dogs and their owners go through various levels of training and are allowed in most facilities, including hospitals. Paws for People works with hospitals, assisted living facilities, hospices, schools and libraries throughout the Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland area. They also go to other locations by special request.

“We go anywhere,” Lundstrom said.

Patients are not the only ones who benefit from pet therapy. Sue Good and Richard Francis, both from Wilmington, volunteer their time and dogs for the service.

Francis, and his German shepherd LT have been involved for 18 months. Francis said working with nursing homes and with kids makes him feel good.

“It turns me on,” he said. “It’s cool watching the kids. When they read to the dog, they don’t stutter.”

Good, working with her golden retriever Archie, reports similar findings.

“The dogs work really well with kids. They’re a good barometer of the kids and how well they’re doing.”

Locally, Paws works with Bayard Taylor Library and the Willowdale Special Needs Ministry in Kennett Square, Jenner’s Pond facilities in West Grove, Wellington at Hershey’s Mill in West Chester and several facilities in Lima, Media and Radnor in Delaware County.

According to the Paws for People Web site, pet therapy improves cardiovascular health, releases endorphins that have a calming effect and diminishes overall physical pain.

Benefits for mental health include lifting spirits and lessening depression, decreasing feelings of isolation and alienation, encourages communication and increases socialization.

In the area of physical therapy, the animals can help increase joint movement and improve recovery time, maintain or increase motor skills and provides motivation to move more, stretch farther and exercise longer.

GiggyBites, the pet treat manufacturer and retailer in Olde Ridge Village, hosted a carnival fund-raiser for Paws for People on April 27.

For more information on Paws for People, go to www.pawsforpeople.org

Photo: Sue Good and her golden retriever Archie pose with some two-legged friends at the Paws for People fund-raiser/carnival at GiggyBites in Olde Ridge Village.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

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