Homeless no more, therapy dog aids refugees
By
Nov 19, 2003, 11:00
STRORY FOUND HERE
A group of preschoolers at St. Benedict’s School learns how Elsa is trained to be obedient but also loves to fetch a ball and play as any other dog.
By David Knopf
dknopf@printownsend.com
You’ve heard the stories about dogs and mailmen. Now add refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia, then top it off with a happy ending.
The hero of our story, a German shepherd, had been wandering homeless around Wyandotte County. One day, she decided to follow a letter carrier who led her to The Humane Society of Greater Kansas City.
“A good choice on her part,” says Julia Kovac, who lives outside Liberty is now the dog’s owner.
Little did Elsa — that’s the pooch — know that just two years later the organization would bestow on her its top honor, “Dog of the Year,” for aiding people in her community.
Soon after adopting her, Kovac, a licensed therapist, enrolled Elsa in obedience class. The dog received a Canine Good Citizen Award, then earned pet-therapy certification from two organizations, South Kansas City-based Pets for Life and the Delta Soc-
iety, an international concern with headquarters in Renton, Wash.
With that education under her collar, Elsa accompanied Kovac to nursing homes, schools, hospital burn units and children’s wings. There, they engaged in therapy adapted to individual clients’ needs.
Not to be confused with animal-assisted activities, pet therapy has specific objectives and focuses on individual needs, Kovac said.
“To be animal-assisted therapy, it has to be part of a care plan,” she said. “There are goals and objectives for each person. It’s supervised by a health professional.”
For example, clients recovering from a stroke will brush Elsa to regain use of their hands. They may fasten and unfasten her collar to improve dexterity in their fingers. A Texas hospital specializing in stroke rehabilitation goes so far as to use dogs for patients learning to walk again.
Kovac and Elsa also visit schools, where they present programs on specific topics such as peace, needs versus wants and personal hygiene.
Elsa visited Jo Cammisano and Vicki Fisher’s pre-school class Wednesday at St. Gabriel’s School. Kovac asked students about their pets and opened the floor to questions. One boy raised his hand, promptly forgetting his question. Another asked whether Elsa was like “a doctor dog.”
The description wasn’t far off.
“Sometimes when people aren’t feeling good, petting an animal or having it sit on their lap can make them feel better,” Kovac said.
Kovac adopted Elsa after making sure her other pets were comfortable with her.
“I had four other dogs at home, and I took each of them down to visit Elsa to see if we were going to have any situations at home,” she says. “Each of them accepted her.”
It’s easy to see why. Elsa, welcomed each of the 15 kids at St. Gabriel’s, leaning in as they scratched the top of her head. This was a victory for courage because the dog outweighed the 4-year-olds 3-to-1.
Elsa’s knack for putting people at ease also has proven beneficial to refugees at St. Benedict’s parish in Kansas City, Kan. So much so that the Humane Society of Kansas City honored Elsa as the its “2003 Dog of the Year.” She was cited for “opening minds to the potential of the human-animal bond, for teaching lessons of unconditional love, patience, adaptability, and for being a generous giver in her community.”
St. Benedict’s Refugee Center serves about 175 people a year, many who fled war and are adapting to a new culture. The church works with refugees from Somalia, Sudan, Bosnia, the Far East and Afghanistan. St. Benedict’s helps familiarize them with conveniences we take for granted — toilet paper, light switches, flashlights and radios.
“Those are just little things,” says Kovac. “Imagine the big things — elevators, escalators, cars. Those kinds of things blow their minds.”
Kovac and Elsa perform programs for the refugees, and the dog’s presence calms the children and builds their confidence.
“Sometimes they’ll take Elsa into their classroom, and all of a sudden they’re an expert on something,” she said..
When Kovac brought a goat and a rooster to the center, several previously introverted refugees opened up and talked about animals in their own countries.
“When we bring the hoofed animals in, it’s always triggering things in these little kids’ minds,” she says.
After a crafts program in which children made walking sticks, one Afghan boy talked about how he used a similar stick to get a herd of sheep to head home from pasture.
“We were in a setting where he could talk about that, where he was comfortable,” Kovac said . “He was able to get some of these things off his mind.”
There are other signs of progress that Kovac attributes to the presence of animals at the center.
One day, a group of Laotian children found a tiny, long-haired kitten in a tree. The kids normally would have ignored it or “done things we’d rather not talk about,” Kovac said. Laotians from their economic strata normally don’t keep pets.
But because the children had worked with animals in therapy sessions, Kovac thinks, their attitudes changed. They placed the kitten in a box tall enough to keep it from escaping. They also attempted to feed it.
“It was a real big deal that those kids took that cat in,” she said.
The children brought the kitten to the refugee center, where it quickly was adopted.
It was a case of refugees helping another refugee, Kovac says.
That also was the case with Elsa. At Kovac’s urging, the refugee center put Elsa’s good fortune to work.
“We wanted them to take someone who’s seeking refuge and match them up with an animal that sought refuge,” Kovac says.
Box with story
Original Innocence, Julia Kovac’s business, is dedicated to “promoting pet assisted wellness.” She named the business after a comment attributed to Pope Innocent III in the 12th and 13th century. The pope was speaking to St. Francis of Assisi.
“In our obsession with original sin, sometimes we forget original innocence and the good that’s in all of us,” the pope said.
Kovac can answer questions about pet-assisted therapy at 896-6569 or at wingsnamerica@aol.com.
Other resources she suggests for people wanting to learn more: Pets for Life, 363-3665, and the Delta Society at www.deltasociety.org.
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