Blind therapy dog uplifts patients

Stevie the Wonder Dog is a blind therapy dog that volunteers his time visiting and uplifting group patients who are fighting addiction. Some of the group Stevie visits said that they relate to his disability and they are hopeful because of his optimism. Stevie brings genuine affection to everyone he meets. As his owner, Jen Milner says, “he sees the good in everyone.”

(Prepared in part from a report in KSL news).

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Lucy: A therapy dog in Utah *

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Above and beyond their place as family companions and in traditional service occupations, dogs in Utah serve in an ever-widening spectrum of therapeutic roles. The physical and emotional benefits to humans that come from relationships with dogs are now recognized and utilized by psychiatric facilities, assisted living centers, hospitals, schools and even prisons.

Today, dogs contribute more to the welfare of individuals and society than perhaps any other time in the history of the human dog bond. Additionally, over the past three decades, increased awareness of the importance of humane care and control of dogs, the enactment and enforcement of leash laws, and dog bite prevention education, have all been instrumental in lowering the number of reported dog-related injuries throughout the nation.

At times, the media spotlight on an individual dog attack can create the impression that dogs pose a significant threat to the community. Sensationalized publicity, along with a lack of knowledge about the causes of dog attacks and a failure to appreciate how truly infrequent serious dog attacks are, have resulted in reactive and uninformed policies directed against certain types of dogs. In a state with less than a dozen hospitalizations per year from dog-related injuries, and only three fatal dog attacks in the past 44 years, South Jordan City surrendered to the national hysteria in 1997 and banned "pit bull" dogs in the city.

Fortunately though, most of the residents of Utah understand and recognize the value of dogs, irrespective of their individual physical characteristics.

* Lucy, a bloodhound, got mixed reviews as a tracking dog for the police department. She later "retired" to a nursing home in Salt Lake City. Lucy spends much of her time hanging out in the Alzheimer's unit, where she has been a big hit. Lucy lowers heart rates and contributes to a positive, pleasant atmosphere for the patients.

April Hollingsworth spies into the door to see if a patient wants to see Piggy while making the rounds at Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake City. April Hollingshead brings her therapy dog, a "pitbull" dog in a wheelchair named Piggy, to Shriners Hospital about twice a week. (Jim Urquhart / The Salt Lake Tribune)

"Pit bull" dog in wheelchair helps Utah kids in wheelchairs

The Salt Lake Tribune, by Heather May

The boy sees the dog from across his hospital room, and his grin is contagious.

Piggy waddles into the room. Hit by a car 2½ years ago, the dog's back legs are paralyzed and she uses her front legs and a doggy wheelchair to drag them behind her.

The pitbull-boxer mix is a therapy dog at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Salt Lake City, where children are often in wheelchairs or casts after receiving free orthopedic surgeries for spinal and leg disorders.

The boy barely talks and doesn't need to. His smile speaks for him as he crawls to the edge of his bed to pet Piggy and toss her a piece of dried chicken jerky.

Seeing reactions like that, April Hollingsworth knows she was right to keep Piggy alive after she was hit by a car.

Whether Hollingsworth is taking Piggy room to room in the hospital, or on runs down Millcreek Canyon, the smiles that follow the dog make her feel like she is passing out $100 bills.

"I feel she's a gift I have to give," she says.

Piggy is one of four therapy dogs that visit the hospital. Despite the reputation "pitbull" dogs have, the dog is friendly and calm. Intermountain Therapy Animals tests all of the volunteer dogs to ensure they are controllable, predictable and like to be around people.

Shriners recreation therapist Laura Lewis said the dogs help make the hospital seem less scary and more like home. It gives children a sense of control to feel like they can take care of something else, even if it is just brushing a dog's fur.

"The kids love the dogs," she said. "I've witnessed moments where a child hasn't talked to anyone else but the second that the dog comes in the room, they will just sit down and tell a dog how they're feeling and what scares them."

Hollingsworth brings Piggy, 6, to Shriners every couple of weeks. This week, she stopped by 20 rooms, where children were recovering from surgery or waiting to be fitted for new wheelchairs or casts.

The visits were quick -- enough time for the children to scratch under Piggy's chin or feed her a treat. Piggy lives up to her name, occasionally grunting.

Francisco "Javier" Ramerez, 10, stood in his hospital gown, his right foot in bandages from surgery to straighten it, dropping a tennis ball in front of Piggy.

The New Mexico boy feels bad for the dog. "I hope that she gets well. She is very playful."

Sometimes, the parents seem more excited than the children.

Maria Ocano snaps pictures of Piggy while her 14-year-old daughter, Maria Castro, is shy. The girl, from Mexico, has spinal muscular atrophy and is in a wheelchair.

Ocano likes that Piggy needs help getting around, too. "It's better for the child," she says. "The child see the dog have a disability."

Angel Lowery has to tell her daughter to stay in bed when Piggy rolls into Haley Champion's room. The 12-year-old from Denver has a neuromuscular disease and was at the hospital to be refitted for leg casts.

Mom and daughter talk about their own dogs. "He is so pretty," Haley says, thinking Piggy is a boy.

When Piggy was hit in November 2007, up to 90 percent of her spinal cord was severed. Hollingsworth was told she wouldn't regain any movement in her hind legs. Within days of the hit-and-run, Piggy had lost all muscle tone. She had no reflexes.

"It seemed like I would have to put her down," Hollingsworth said.

But she held off because it was the holidays. In January, Piggy stood on her back legs and her reflexes -- reacting when the bottom of her paws were touched -- started returning.

Euthanizing her never made sense to Hollingsworth. "I got her [from the pound] because I liked her personality and she keeps me company. And she still does that."

Today, Piggy can occasionally use her back legs. She goes to rehab, walking on a treadmill without her cart and balancing herself on an exercise ball. Hollingsworth has installed a wheelchair ramp for Piggy to get from her deck to the back yard.

She decided to train Piggy as a therapy dog based a reaction she got while walking Piggy around her neighborhood a couple of years ago. A man in a wheelchair, whose legs were amputated after a climbing accident, saw Piggy in her cart and started visiting her. He said she was one of the few things that made him happy.

"Just watching her keep going is just amazing," Scott Williams said in an interview with Hollingsworth through the oral history project StoryCorps on KCPW public radio. "She's like the coolest wheelchair individual in the United States."

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Taz

Dog wins a race against time to bring aid to injured athlete

A prominent Colorado adventure athlete can thank her dog and a Utah search-and-rescue team for saving her life after she fell and injured herself while running and spent two nights in subfreezing weather near Moab last week.

Danelle Ballengee, 35, of Dillon, will have surgery today at Denver Health Medical Center to repair a broken pelvis suffered while running with her dog near the Amasa Back Trail south of Moab last Wednesday.

She also is recovering from severe frostbite on her feet, internal bleeding and numerous cuts and bruises. The two-time adventure racing world champion and elite triathlete, trail runner and mountain biker slipped on a patch of ice on Hurrah Pass and tumbled off three successive rock faces of 10 to 20 feet each.

A Grand County (Utah) Search and Rescue team on all-terrain vehicles found Ballengee after her dog, Taz, a 3-year-old German shepherd-golden retriever mix, led rescuers on a five-mile journey to the accident site.

Ballengee left around noon for what she thought would be a casual two- hour trail run in the 40-degree weather. She was wearing light running pants, two lightweight running shirts and a lightweight fleece top.

After the fall, Ballengee crawled about a quarter-mile on her hands and knees to try to find help.

During the night, she did sit-ups and kept her upper body moving to keep warm. She drank snowmelt from a puddle when the water in her hydration pack ran out and ate two packets of raspberry energy gel she had carried on the run.

Ballengee owns a home in Moab and spends a lot of time running, cycling, climbing and paddling there in preparation for adventure races. Sometimes she trains with friends but often just with Taz.

A Moab neighbor called Balengee's parents in Evergreen after she hadn't seen any sign of Ballengee for more than a day. Police initially searched Ballengee's house for signs of foul play and notified authorities in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona about her missing vehicle. They also searched the Colorado River and nearby lakes on the advice of her parents, who thought she might have been kayaking.

Moab police found Ballengee's pickup truck at the Amasa Back trailhead. As search-and-rescue personnel arrived, a dog matching the description of Taz was seen running around the trailhead.

"We were going to try to identify the dog, but the dog basically didn't want to be caught and instead turned around and headed back toward the trail," said Curt Brewer, chief deputy with the Grand County Sheriff's Office.

"When that happened, the search crew decided to follow the dog. And the dog took our rescue personnel right to her. I think we would have eventually found her, because we were in the right location, but the dog saved us some time," he said.

A helicopter airlifted Ballengee to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction. She was moved to Denver on Saturday.

A titanium plate and pins will be inserted into her pelvis to repair the breaks. Doctors have told her it is unlikely that she will lose any toes because of the frostbite, but it could be two to six months before she can walk.

Nighttime temperatures dipped to the low 20s in the Moab area last week and reached the mid-40s during the day. A hunter died of exposure on Nov. 29 near Moab after getting stranded in the La Sal Mountains.

"I just can't wait to give him a big hug. He has no idea how important he can be," said Ballengee.

National Canine Research Council

What is a dog bite?

While the question seems simple enough, the answer is often not what we imagine.

For each of the five years between 1999 and 2003, an average of 1,900 people in Utah received medical treatment for dog-related injuries.

Of the 1,900 people who sought medical treatment yearly in hospital emergency rooms for injuries associated with dog bites between 1999-2003, an average of only 10 persons per year had injuries serious enough to require hospitalization.

Source: Utah State Department of Health. News Release, April 2005

National Canine Research Council

Over the past 45 years (1965 - present) there have been three (3) dog bite-related fatalities in Utah, an average of one (1) fatality every 15 years.

NCRC's 2011 Preliminary Report on Dog Bite-Related Fatalities illustrates the challenge of accurately reporting on these extremely rare, tragic events. Our mission of preserving the human-canine bond obligates us to be as accurate about these emotionally charged incidents as we can, so that they are calmly, correctly and, therefore, usefully understood. Accuracy takes time.

At least three (3) different breeds of dogs have been reported to be involved in these incidents.*

All three victims were young male children.

None of the dogs involved had been spayed or neutered by their owners.

Two of the three fatalities involved dogs that not only were chained, but that had a known history of being abused, tormented and/or starved.

In 1965, an unsupervised 4-year-old boy was attacked by a dog in his backyard. His father had recently obtained the emaciated dog and chained him in the yard. It had been speculated that either the boy and/or the dog became entangled in the chain, causing the distressed dog to attack the boy. (Salt Lake City)

In 1977, a 5-year-old boy was attacked and killed by a "livestock" dog on a farm. (Huntsville)

In 2001, an unsupervised 2-year-old boy wandered out to where his father kept a large number of dogs chained. The dogs were used for breeding/profit. One of the dogs fatally bit the boy in the head when the boy approached the dog. The owner/parent admitted that his children had regularly teased and harassed this particular dog. (Hildale).

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*Note: In recent years, scientists have established that visual identification of dogs of unknown origin is extremely unreliable; therefore, while we can be sure these listed incidents involved varied types of dogs, we cannot be certain of the accuracy of most breed identifications.

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In spite of the negligent or reckless ownership practices of some dog owners, dogs still post an incredibly low risk for causing a fatality in Utah:

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

In 2007, eleven (11) Utah children died as a result of maltreatment (abuse, neglect).

In the single year 2007, more than three times as many Utah children died from maltreatment than the total of all children killed by dogs in the state over the past 45 years.

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Fact is, people in Utah routinely accept far greater risks from ATVs, bicycles and swimming pools than any that are associated with companion animals.

National Canine Research Council