Animal Magnetism

Pet therapy volunteer donates 100 stuffed animals to Genesis emergency departments

DAVENPORT, IOWA - The accident victim couldn’t walk or talk. He could barely move his arms. Equally troubling was the fact that he hadn’t responded to his therapists. No one knew if he even could.

He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling during physical therapy at Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, when Sandy Truitt and her Afghan dog came to visit.

With the therapist’s permission, the 75-pound dog, Isaac, a gentle giant, jumped on the mattress and nuzzled next to the young man’s head. The dog remained completely still, giving his patient the opportunity to respond. Everyone waited and watched quietly. Soon, to their amazement, the man moved his fingers and arm to cuddle his canine visitor.

“Everyone was ecstatic,” recalls Truitt, who has raised and shown Afghan dogs since 1969. “It was the first movement this young man had made since coming to the hospital. Isaac and I went back every two weeks, and the young man continued to improve. He began interacting with nurses, doctors and other pet therapy volunteers. It was a wonderful example of what pet therapy can do.”

Today, 10 years later, Truitt recalls that early success story as one of many she has experienced as a pioneering volunteer of the Genesis Pet Therapy program.

After a decade of volunteering with the program, Truitt took a different approach this year when she was unable to volunteer with her Afghan dogs – one had retired, one had passed away, one was traveling the show circuit and another had undergone surgery.

Without her real dogs readily available to help patients, Truitt decided to collect 100 dogs of the stuffed animal variety – with plans to give 50 each to the Emergency Departments on East and West campuses.

After weeks of collecting and receiving donations of stuffed dogs from the clients of her dog-grooming business, she achieved her goal and came to the hospital recently bearing her furry gifts.

“I thought the stuffed animals would provide a little bit of comfort to children visiting the Emergency Room,” Truitt says. “It’s awfully nice when everything is falling down around you to have something soft to hold on to.”

The Pet Therapy Program, coordinated through the hospital’s Volunteer Services Department, gives patients with physical or mental impairments a chance to experience a specifically designed therapeutic intervention to improve function or provide social interaction. The program, now with 27 volunteers,  has helped patients for many years.

“Their visits help ease fears, despair, loneliness and isolation,” says Doug Boleyn, manager of Therapeutic Recreation at Genesis. “Our patients become more responsive and optimistic and more communicative when they work with the visiting pets.”

Truitt was there with her dogs Bubbles, Isaac and Navaar, all now deceased, when the program began. To earn registration, dogs were tested three times. “They evaluated you as a dog-handling team; how well the dog responded to instruction; and how comfortable the dog was around people,” Truitt recalls. “The program was accepted 100 percent from the first day we started.“

As the program progressed, Truitt would bring a small gift for her patients, something to go with the season. It was such a big hit with patients that companies were contacted and asked to donate stuffed animals. With an overflow of gifts to the Pediatric Unit, they were then given to the Emergency Department for any child who had to come to the hospital.

Truitt remembered the initiative’s success when she was looking for a project this year to celebrate her 10th anniversary of pet therapy at Genesis. “I’ve been instrumental in getting other people to volunteer with their dogs,” says Truitt, who also volunteers with her dogs at Gilda’s Club of the Quad Cities. Her dogs are registered with Therapy Dogs, Inc., out of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

She has seen firsthand the effect that the four-legged visitors have on patients and staff.

“Studies have shown that petting a dog, in some cases, even being in the same room as a dog, has a calming effect on people, reducing blood pressure and heart rate,” Boleyn says. “But there is also something physically and psychologically healing about being with dogs, and you don’t have to be ill to appreciate the effect.”

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