Newspaper Page Text
A pandemic pivot
Pet therapy group brings joy to Piedmont Atlanta Hospital staffers
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Piedmont
Atlanta Hospital
healthcare
workers relax
with dogs from
Happy Tails Pet
Therapy
By Donna Williams Lewis
Jerry Coker’s golden retriever Norma Jean
knows when it’s show time.
Coker, a retired lawyer, is a volunteer with
Happy Tails Pet Therapy, a Roswell-based
nonprofit now in its 30th year of “sharing
the comfort, healing and connection of the
human-animal bond.”
Coker, who lives in Buckhead, leads a
Happy Tails team that began visiting patients
at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital in Buckhead in
2019. During visits to the hospital, his dog
wears a red Happy Tails vest identifying her as
“Norma Jean The Love Machine.”
“When I pull that out of the drawer, she
comes trotting over,” Coker said, “and when
I slip it on her, she walks to the door because
she knows we’re headed to the car. And then,
when we get to the hospital, I think she gets
a spring in her step and a very confident air
about her as she strides down the hallway.
“The experience at times is overwhelming.
It’s a combination of seeing how much the
interaction with the dog helps the patients
and the staff members and realizing what
an awesome privilege and responsibility it is
to share our dogs with them. ... I was on a
visit one time and the patient who had been
stroking Norma Jean’s face reached up and
stroked my face just to say thank you.”
When the coronavirus pandemic hit,
Happy Tails’ visits with Piedmont Atlanta
patients were suspended for safety reasons.
But, by summer, talks began on how Happy
Tails might safely do visits with Piedmont
Atlanta staff, whose stress from dealing
with COVTD-19 was “palpable,” said Pam
Redman, director of Patient Experience at
Piedmont Atlanta.
The first visit came on a sunny day in
December, with a couple of the five dogs in
attendance dressed up in Christmas attire.
Several more visits with staffers have been held
since then.
“Staff are so grateful for these visits,”
Redman said. “These dogs provide time for
the staff to come out, decompress, have some
respite and then love on a dog that’s going to
love them back and not ask for anything.”
Joan Macdonald, a clinical researcher and
a member of Happy Tails’ board of directors,
helped the organization navigate the pandemic
as its risk assessment manager. She said that
first visit for Piedmont Atlanta’s healthcare
workers was “so heartwarming to see.”
“Just the shrieks of joy — ‘Norma Jean!’
They all clearly missed her and she missed
them and they were all happy to have a little
reunion,” the Brookhaven resident said.
Happy Tails currently has 314 members
and 250 pets serving 182 facilities including
nursing homes, mental health facilities, rehab
centers and just about every metro Atlanta
hospital. About 150 more facilities are on
Happy Tails’ waiting list, says the group,
which constantly recruits new members to
help shorten that list.
In addition to pet visits, the organization
has a program in which pets take part in
physical and occupational therapy sessions and
a READing Paws program that takes pets into
schools, libraries and other settings as reading
companions for children. “Special visits” may
include parades, college campus, or summer
camp gatherings.
Membership is open to pet owners with
dogs, cats or rabbits. Dogs must meet a set of
stringent requirements while cats and bunnies
just need to be able to tolerate a harness, be
docile, and not mind being petted.
Macdonald started volunteering in 2012
with Max, her white German shepherd, who
passed away last summer. They mostly visited
psychiatric hospitals where Max, who could be
“a very serious dog,” gravitated toward people
who were sullen or disengaged “and would
just go over and stick his head in their lap,”
she said.
On one of these visits, to a Veterans
Administration facility, a young man in a
corner responded to Max’s lap hug by burying
his face in his fur, Macdonald said. She says he
told her he’d been in the psych rehab for two
weeks and hadn’t talked to anyone nor even
smiled until his visit from Max.
“There were certainly times where you
really felt like you helped provide someone an
avenue on their path to healing,” Macdonald
said.
Patrice Hosmer, speaker’s bureau rep for
Happy Tails, said she has seen pet visits bring
a light of recognition to some Alzheimer’s
patients’ eyes.
She calls such times “moments of high
grace, because you get to witness something
that is very special.”
The retired high school teacher and East
Cobb County resident has volunteered with
her cat Bella since 2012 and is writing a
book about pet therapy. Her husband, Gary,
volunteers with their dog Lily.
Coker looks forward to the day his team
can get back to visiting patients, staff members
and others throughout Piedmont Atlanta
Hospital.
Before the pandemic, he always tried to
get to the hospital early so Norma Jean could
interact with people in a waiting room before
her one-hour visit to patient areas began.
One day, he says, a woman tapped his
shoulder as they left the hospital and told him,
“You and your dog were in the waiting room
earlier, and I just wanted to let you know that
your dog lifted the mood of the entire waiting
room.”
Redman praises Happy Tails for the level
of training and commitment required of the
volunteers and their dogs.
“We just truly cherish and are so thankful
for the times that the dogs and their handlers
are able to come,” she said. “I think if we
could have dogs here all of the time on our
campus it would be a happier place.” QZ]
For information on how to join, request a
visit, or make a donation to Happy Tails Pet
Therapy, visit happytailspets.org.
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16 AUGUST 2021 | 03
AtlantalntownPaper.com