waiter stops to pet
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine
"Do you take pictures of every dog?" I asked.
"Yes, I keep a photo album in my room of every dog that visits," Mr. Stevens replied. "But usually all I get back is pictures of the owners' legs."
He spoke in a rapid-fire mumble and didn't like staying in the same place for more than a minute or two before pulling his wheelchair around the room by shuffling his heels against the tile floor. From the condition of it, I bet that Mr. Stevens had chosen to wear that Air Force jacket every day for a long time. It looked like he had been shaving without using a mirror for the past few weeks.
Yet, Mr. Stevens was one of the more "put together" of the bunch--about a half dozen residents who came down to be volunteer subjects for therapy dog training.
The other volunteers weren't quite so gregarious, instead ranging from aloof to catatonic.
More than once I wondered if there was actually any film in Mr. Stevens camera.
Our dog Lolly has never met a person she didn't love. Seriously, it doesn't matter who we come across walking down the street, she will drop to the pavement when anyone offers the slightest bit of attention. She is the most social dog I've ever seen. And people love her back. When we walk down the street, children will often call out her name and come running to see her. Almost everyone we've met in our neighborhood was a result of approaching us to ask about the funny little happy dog that prances down the street.
She'd make a great therapy dog, Katherine and I would say to each other.
After a year or so of looking around, we finally found a therapy dog group that sounded like a good match for Lolly. They have monthly training sessions for new dogs at the Armed Forces Retirement Home (minutes from our house), so we signed up and went this past weekend.
Once we got there, we realized that it wasn't really training for Lolly--she just has to be a dog. The training was really for us.
Therapy dogs are brought into retirement homes, hospitals, after school programs, and other situations where a chance to pet a friendly dog might bring some joy or happiness. Our trainer told us that after a visit with an animal, patients are usually "up" for a week afterwards and often talk about the dogs they meet long after.
After learning all the rules and doing some obedience commands and tests (which Lolly, the first dog to be tested, ace'd with almost military precision--not quite sure how that happened), we were supposed to practice with the retiree volunteers.
I consider myself really good with people. I can make conversation with just about anyone, in any situation, with relative ease. But once I looked around the room of volunteers, I immediately felt completely out of sorts.
Outside of Mr. Stevens, they weren't really a very communicative bunch. They all just kind of sat there and stared. I had trouble accepting that these people had actually volunteered to be here, as I'm quite positive most of them had no idea where they were.
In a situation like that, every physical and expressive cue that someone is approachable is nonexistent. You see some dude slouched in a wheelchair blankly staring at his foot and you have no idea what to do. Can I approach you? Do you want me to bring the dog to you? Are you going to scream if I get within two feet of you?
Lolly wasn't helping, as she surveyed the room and immediately determined that the resident volunteers were not nearly as interesting as the other dog owners, who did things like speak, move, and acknowledge her presence.
It was Katherine who figured it out first. She just saw a woman sitting alone in her wheelchair in the middle of the room, pulled up a chair next to her, sat down, put Lolly in her lap, and said, "Would you like to meet my dog?"
The woman immediately smiled and reached out to touch Lolly's face.
I thought Katherine's approach was genius and decided to repeat it myself. I went up to the most spaced-out dude in the room, pulled up a chair, and introduced him to Lolly. Without saying a word, he thrust out both arms and gently rubbed her face and neck. Then he got a huge smile on his face and Lolly melted at the affection.
By this time, a few non-volunteer residents had noticed all the activity and shuffled/rolled over to see what was going on. Now there was about 12 retirees curious about the dogs, so we kept taking turns bringing Lolly to them.
Of those who spoke, they all wanted to know everything about Lolly--how old she was, where she came from, what kind of dog she was. After getting the basic bio facts out of the way, the retirees would then tell us about pets they'd had.
Unfortunately, every pet story they shared ended with a full retelling of the pet's awful demise.
"Yeah, I used to have a dog that was this color, we called him Mr. Barks," one gentleman shared. "Then, one day, Mr. Barks woke up and his back legs didn't work no more--so I knew he had to be put down. I couldn't decide if I should take him to the vet or just take him out back with a shotgun and do it myself. The vet charged fifty bucks to do it--can you imagine?"
I told him Mr. Barks sounded like a wonderful dog.
To be fair, when you are that old, I'm sure a lot of your stories involve characters that are now dead, be they human, canine, or whatever.
We go back in a few more weeks for another evaluation, then the group leader and we decide if this this is something we should commit to. Even before that, I'm pretty convinced already at this is something that Lolly and I will make a part of our lives.
As intensely awkward it was for the first few moments, that is also what I find so compelling about the opportunity. Lolly doesn't care that they are frail, old, shy, or smell like pee. She has a great time regardless.
As I get better "trained," I'm sure I will too. Given the opportunity to spend an hour listening to someone reminisce about their dead pet, compared to sitting at brunch and listening to some hipster douche bag go on and on about video games and LCD Soundsystem--Mr. Barks is gonna win every time.
