{"id":13188,"date":"2017-11-27T14:55:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T21:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=13188"},"modified":"2023-06-23T10:59:43","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T16:59:43","slug":"how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"How pet therapy benefits patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><figure id=\"attachment_13193\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13193\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13193 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27073728\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS102.jpgsized.webp\" alt=\"three therapy dogs on a picnic table with UCHealth Memorial Hospital in the background.\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27073728\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS102.jpgsized.webp 667w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27073728\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS102.jpgsized-200x300.webp 200w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27073728\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS102.jpgsized-100x150.webp 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13193\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UCHealth Memorial Hospital &#8220;TheraPaws&#8221; therapy dogs. Murphy, left, Lacey, foreground, and Rags photographed outside Memorial Hospital Central Thursday, Nov.\u00a01, 2017. Photo by Mark Reis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, everyone knows Xena the Warrior Princess.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s a 22-pound French Bulldog, and she is fond of green beans, ice cream and visiting patients at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/locations\/uchealth-memorial-hospital-central\/\">Memorial Hospital<\/a>. She has a calm and reassuring bedside manner. She\u2019s known to put her paw on top of a patient\u2019s hand to let them know that everything is going to be all right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone knows her,\u2019\u2019 said Sonji Martin, her owner who volunteers weekly with Xena. \u201cShe makes people smile. Patients, nurses, the staff, they\u2019re always happy to see her.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Xena is one of 19 dogs in Memorial\u2019s pet therapy program, which is designed to help patients focus on something that reminds them of home \u2013 and not the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are numerous published studies demonstrating the positive impact of a pet therapy program on hospitalized patients,\u2019\u2019 said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/uchealth-announces-joel-yuhas-as-next-president-and-ceo-of-memorial-hospital-central-and-memorial-hospital-north\/\">Memorial Hospital CEO Joel Yuhas<\/a>. \u201cThose hospitalized often have very little choice in what happens to them in a hospital.\u00a0 A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4485208\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Institutes of Health study <\/a>found that patients reported decreased pain, reduced stress, more relaxed respiration, improved mood and increased perception of energy.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Each therapy dog at Memorial is certified by an agency that evaluates dogs for personality and behavior. All of the dogs have had obedience training and are tested to ensure they react appropriately in a variety of situations. The dogs have a clean bill of health from their veterinarian.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPet therapy dogs are rigorously trained to respond to touch, and it is part of their job to help our patients find warmth and friendliness in our hospitals,\u2019\u2019 Yuhas said.\u00a0\u201cHospitals are increasingly turning to the growing field of animal-assisted therapy, using dogs or other animals to help people recover from or better cope with health problems, such as heart disease, cancer and mental health disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Xena comes to Memorial once a week. Like any princess, Xena has her own chariot \u2013 a doll stroller \u2013 that Martin uses to wheel her through the halls of the hospital so she won\u2019t tire out. Xena has 450 followers on Instagram. Her hobbies include sleeping and eating.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13194\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13194\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13194 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized.webp\" alt=\"about a dozen therapy dogs on a picnic table with UCHealth Memorial Hospital in the background.\" width=\"300\" height=\"182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized.webp 1200w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized-300x182.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized-1024x622.webp 1024w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized-768x467.webp 768w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized-150x91.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized-200x122.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13194\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The UCHealth Memorial Hospital &#8220;TheraPaws&#8221; therapy dogs who showed up for a photo shoot outside Memorial Hospital Central Thursday, Nov. 1, 2017. Photo by Mark Reis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Rebekah Grexia Dunlap, a registered nurse at Memorial, said Xena helps comfort staff as she did recently after staff intervened when a patient stopped breathing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfterwards, Xena and Sonji showed up and everyone starting sitting on the floor so they could pet her,\u2019\u2019 Dunlap said.<\/p>\n<h3>Why is it good to have pets?<\/h3>\n<p>Larry McCants, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/give-to-uchealth\/volunteer\/\">a volunteer<\/a>, frequently brings Murphy, a 5-year-old goldendoodle, to the hospital. His presence at Memorial brings joy to the faces of patients, staff and visitors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a huge difference between walking into the hospital by yourself and walking in with a dog. The joy a dog brings is incredible,\u201d McCants said. \u201cPeople stop to interact with dogs. Sometimes it takes me 30 minutes to get up on the floor because there are so many people who want to see the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Murphy spends most of his time in pediatrics, but he also visits other units and the emergency department. McCants recalled a time a doctor asked for Murphy to come to the emergency department to help calm a 3-year-old child who was upset about having a procedure.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13195\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13195\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13195 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074142\/xena2.jpgsized.webp\" alt=\"Xena the Warrior Princess dog held by Sonji Martin\" width=\"300\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074142\/xena2.jpgsized.webp 1018w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074142\/xena2.jpgsized-300x295.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074142\/xena2.jpgsized-768x754.webp 768w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074142\/xena2.jpgsized-150x147.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074142\/xena2.jpgsized-200x196.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13195\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Xena the Warrior Princess with Sonji Martin. Both volunteer at UCHealth Memorial Hospital in the Pet Therapy program.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13196\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13196\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13196 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized.webp\" alt=\"President and CEO Joel Yuhas sits with his two black labs\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized.webp 1200w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized-1024x683.webp 1024w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized-150x100.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074221\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS371.jpgsized-200x133.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13196\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UCHealth Memorial President and CEO Joel Yuhas at his Colorado Springs home Thursday, November 1, 2017, with his black labs Marcello, left, and Bunni. Photo by Mark Reis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cMurphy put his paws up on the bed and the child just melted,\u201d McCants recalled.<\/p>\n<p>The dogs \u201cbring a sense of peace with them and many of the patients miss their animals at home. Some of the families in pediatrics, along with the staff, just need that warm, fuzzy feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McCants said Murphy knows when he\u2019s going to work and he\u2019s all business when he arrives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s very calm. When he goes to work, he knows he needs to follow the protocol: No barking, no jumping. He knows he\u2019s there for the patients. After a two-hour session with multiple patients, he comes home and sleeps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s exhausted, but he loves it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article first appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/doctorsquarterly\/docs\/drq_winter2017_11-27-17-final?e=30188985\/55785269\">Doctor&#8217;s Quarterly <\/a>magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, everyone knows Xena the Warrior Princess. She\u2019s a 22-pound French Bulldog, and she is fond of green beans, ice cream and visiting patients at Memorial Hospital. She has a calm and reassuring bedside manner. She\u2019s known to put her paw on top of a patient\u2019s hand to let them know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":13193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9187,1511,171],"class_list":["post-13188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-readysetco","tag-uchealth-memorial-hospital","tag-volunteer-services"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How pet therapy benefits patients - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Big and small, short and tall, 19 pet therapy dogs help reduce anxiety and bring smiles to patients at UCHealth Memorial Hospital.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How pet therapy benefits patients\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cThere are numerous published studies demonstrating the positive impact of a pet therapy program on hospitalized patients,\u2019\u2019 said Memorial Hospital CEO Joel Yuhas.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UCHealth Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uchealthorg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-11-27T21:55:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-23T16:59:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/11\/27074011\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS050.jpgsized.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"UCHealth Writers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"UCHealth Writers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"UCHealth Writers\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b42635b22028b4761efa8849bfec3811\"},\"headline\":\"How pet therapy benefits patients\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-27T21:55:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-23T16:59:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":777,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/how-pet-therapy-benefits-patients\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/6\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/27073728\\\/11_01_17-MEMORIAL-HOSP-DOGS102.jpgsized.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Ready. 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