Good News about: Mutilated Puppies

[Setzer]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44407043/ ... ndvjdREKf8

Apparently some hospitals have been using maimed dogs to help the newly disabled cope with their injuries.

“Many of the patients are new to wheelchairs,” Linda Marler, the program’s director told TODAY.com. “When they see Chili and Arlo, they say, ‘If those dogs can do it, so can I.’ ”

Chili and Arlo are the only dogs with disabilities among the 90 specially trained therapy dogs that participate in Baylor’s Animal Assisted Therapy program. The canine volunteers make weekly visits to lift the spirits of patients who have suffered traumatic injuries or a stroke.

“We use the dogs to create more of a home atmosphere and also to get a response,” Marler said.

She’s found that animals will often elicit a reaction when every other method has failed. “For head injury patients, a dog has been the first thing they respond to when emerging from a coma,” Marler said. “For others, being with a dog is what motivates them to speak or throw a ball.”

[Sriad]

Dogs are like a cheat code to unlocking Manly Tears. Nice article!

It's really very clever to use disabled dogs as emotional aides for newly disabled people: the dogs don't give even a hint of a shit once they're used to their changes.

[Gil Hamilton]

Dogs with injuries tend to adapt very well. You get three legged dogs where running isn't the problem, it's stopping that is the issue. I've seen dogs with two legs (two front legs, mind you) get up on them and scoot around.

This is a great idea. Dogs and other pets, but particularly dogs are great workers in helping hospitalized people or people with disabilities. One of my dogs was an unofficial helper dog at several nursing homes, which started because my dad would bring him to visit my grandmother who bounced around in a lot of facilities before she died. However, at each of those facilities, Sam (the dog) became a mad hit with the other residents/patients, because he was so gentle and tolerant and it also helps that he looked like a generic dog, so even after my grandmother died, he'd take Sam to these places. The various facilities encouraged it, because the residents would be considerably more lucid and happier during and after Sam visited, and generally improved conditions for the patients. Some of them were far enough along with senior dementia that they thought Sam was their own dog from their own past, but as it turns out that the high point of a person in a home is for their old dog to turn up twice a week to give them some encouragement, and it was just fine for Sam to be Lucky or Fido for fifteen minutes.

So I'm not at all surprised by this. People respond naturally to dogs and as a rule, dogs are stable geniuses when it comes to empathy. Seeing dogs who are fat and happy and active despite having lost a couple limbs has got to be encouraging.

[Broomstick]

Young kids sometimes adapt better than adults - they haven't learned yet what they're not supposed to be able to do, so they figure it out for themselves. Adults are more likely to let fear and a lifetime of mistaken notions about the disabled get in their way.

[Lord Baal]

I have to say it, when I first read the tittle of this article I say to my self, I had to look what this twisted bastard wrote about, since it's kind of miss leading for people not costumed here.

[PainRack]

Wow.... just wow.....

I know no content posts are discouraged here but thank you.

[Setzer]

I have to say it, when I first read the tittle of this article I say to my self, I had to look what this twisted bastard wrote about, since it's kind of miss leading for people not costumed here.

It's this new thing I'm doing. I try and find an incredibly morbid topic and post some good news about it.