Therapy dogs return to hospital, hospice, senior homes in Niagara
After being sidelined from visiting Tabor Manor as part of therapy-dog programming for more than three months, Jim Clark and Jasper are happy to be back on the job.
Jasper, a chocolate lab, makes his way through the automatic sliding doors with his tail wagging, stopping to reacquaint himself with the smells that were once so familiar to him. He and Clark had been regular visitors to the long-term care facility as longtime volunteers with the Niagara Region branch of St. John Ambulance (SJA) therapy-dog unit.
In March, Clark was one of 60 dog team members who received an email from SJA notifying them the program was being dissolved. On the very same day, the dissolution was announced to all of the participating facilities including schools, the St. Catharines hospital, nursing homes and hospices.
“This was totally devastating to everybody,” recalled Clark, noting they had no warning the decision was coming. “It was not only devastating to us as volunteers, but also devastating to the facilities. You’re talking about schools that were halfway through their reading program, and these are kids that have a very difficult time reading and they relied on those dogs to help them make it through the rest of the school year.”
Within a few days of finding out the program was cancelled, dogteam volunteers had a meeting to discuss ideas for the future.
Clark said he’d found Therapeutic Paws of Canada (TPOC) during his online research, and at the meeting he was asked to find out more about the organization.
With approximately 600 volunteer dog teams working across Canada, from B.C. to Newfoundland, the organization is volunteer-run with only one paid position: a bookkeeper. Its focus, said Clark, is strictly on therapy animals, cats and dogs. “It’s an amazing organization, and we’re happy to bring it to Niagara.”
While the evaluation process for approving dogs into the program is very similar, Clark said there are some small differences between the programs; for example volunteers with TPOC do not have to track their hours, like they did at SJA, and the uniform requirements are a bit more relaxed.
The key difference between the two, Clark said, is that all the funds raised by the Niagara team will stay with the Niagara team for their own use. Previously, whatever was raised by the team went to SJA, which decided how the money was used. Clark said that sometime led to problems.
Having the ability to raise money for their own purposes will be a big help in getting the program off the ground, Clark said. There are a lot of startup expenses, such as annual team fees, police checks, dog evaluation fees and buying promotional materials.
“Everything we raise will go back into the program,” said Clark.
In the meantime, volunteers have been covering their own expenses to ensure the dogs can get back out into the community. Within the past few weeks, they’ve resumed visits to Niagara Health’s St. Catharines site, nursing homes, and hospices. Clark said they hope to get back into the schools in the fall, including Brock University and Niagara College.
“We have left St. John (Ambulance) behind; we have left what they did to us behind us. We felt it was not good for our membership and not good for us, to keep dwelling on what they did to us,” he said. “We’re back in the community. We’re back doing the job that we dearly love to do.”
Clark said they’re all very passionate about the program, noting if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have jumped through the hoops they’ve had to jump through in the past few months to get back into being able to visit.
The community appears to have missed them, as well. Niagara Health’s manager of recruitment and volunteer services, Tracey Giovannone, said they launched the therapy-dog programming at the St. Catharines site in spring 2016 and it grew to include visits to many wards, including complex care, oncology, mental health, pediatrics and more.
“Making sure we have this programming is vital,” she said, adding that it’s a big comfort to patients and their families. “We’re happy to have it back, as it is vital to patient care. Just having that comfort and care makes such a difference in their daily lives.”
Of the original SJA team — about 60 team members — around half have joined up with the new organization. Clark said there are many reasons for the smaller team number. Some volunteers, he said, made the decision not to return, based on their dog’s age or health. Others have joined different therapy dog agencies in Niagara after SJA disbanded, while some were left with a bitter taste in their mouth after the experience with SJA and opted not to continue volunteering.
TPOC’s Niagara branch will cover the entire region of Niagara, and Clark said they’ll be looking to add more volunteers in the fall.
The new team can be found on Facebook by visiting their page: Niagara Region Therapeutic Paws of Canada. They can also be reached by email at tpocniagara@gmail.com.