Sue Manning says few patients she visits remember her name or recognize her face. No, it’s her furry sidekick, Lily, who makes the impressions.
“Lily and I were waiting for a hospital volunteer at Shawnee Mission Medical Center the other day,” Manning says. “A woman came up to me and says, ‘Is that Lily?’”
Lily (and Manning) had visited the woman’s mother, a hospital patient, a week before. The patient had called her daughter as soon as Lily left to tell her how much she enjoyed the golden retriever’s visit. A picture of Lily now sits next to a picture of the patient’s granddaughter on the bedside table. They were the first images the woman wanted to see when she woke up from surgery.
Lily, who is five years old, has developed quite a cadre of friends through her therapy work. Manning and Lily started volunteering with Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care about two years ago. Manning had contacted the organization as an extension of her work with MO-KAN Pet Partners, a nonprofit organization and affiliate of Delta Society, which provides resources for teams working in animal-assisted activities and therapies.
Recently, more than 20 MO-KAN teams of dogs and handlers participated in KCH&PC’s Camp Erin. The dogs interacted with the children and teens attending the grief-support camp.
“All I did was send out a notice to my membership,” Manning says. “Everybody wanted to work at the camp. It was really rewarding. I hope our participation will be ongoing.”
Camps, hospitals, nursing homes, and patients’ homes have all been the settings for pet therapy visits. Manning says the visits are often short. Patients pet Lily and chat with Manning. Well, sometimes.
“One patient we visited was a man from Alaska who had always had dogs,” Manning says. “When we would go see him, he was always reading. He would stop reading, pet Lily for about five minutes, and then start reading again. He never said a word to me.”
Manning doesn’t mind letting Lily have the spotlight. She enjoys being in the background, facilitating Lily’s work. Sometimes Lily sits next to patients on chairs. Other times, she is invited to jump up on patients’ beds.
“Lily does all the work,” Manning says. “I just drive her around.”
When not driving Lily around, Manning, a native Texan, enjoys spending time with her husband, Clarence, and her 12 grandchildren. Just the other night, eight of them spent the night at her house.
“It was really not as crazy as it sounds,” Manning says.
Clarence often helps Manning with the team training MO-KAN provides. Both handlers and their pets go through extensive training to learn how best to provide services to patients. MO-KAN offers two, 12-hour training sessions as well as team evaluations every two years. The training covers all aspects of how to be a therapy team and role-playing opportunities. The organization currently has 64 members. All of the pets are dogs except for one cat. Manning says all animals are allowed.
Manning encourages anyone who is interested in expanding their hospice work through pet therapy to contact the organization at http://mo-kanpetpartners.org/aboutus.html.
This article contributed by Amber Stenger, KCH&PC Volunteer
