Meggan Monday: Therapy dog brings smiles

Our Meggan Monday this morning follows a very good girl who spends her days bringing joy to others.

We want to introduce you to a very special volunteer who brightens the day of patients at Memorial Hospital and residents of several senior living centers on the Coast. Please meet Nick and Donna Strickland’s St. Berdoodle Piper!

Donna said, “She is a Saint Berdoodle, and that is a Saint Bernard Poodle Mix.”

Nick said, “We started off training her, went through the Pet Smart initial program, then we went through the AKC program. She is rated as a good citizen through the AKC. She is certified through Pet Partners, a national organization that certifies therapy dogs.”

Emily Ann Allen from Seashore Assisted Living said, “Piper is a blessing to all of us. When Piper walks through the door, I’m usually sitting on the sofa out front and she comes straight to me.”

Donna said, “As a retired nurse, I knew this is what I wanted to do, to be involved in pet therapy because I had seen how it had affected other people’s lives and as I got ready to move into that part of it, Home Under the Dome, which is a Memory Care respite program at our church, at First United Methodist Gulfport, gave me the challenge to have her ready in time for them to open.”

Nick said, “Piper has been a great ministry for us. Since March, Piper has seen 8,300 people. She works six days a week. She works Memorial Hospital four days and then we work nursing homes on Wednesdays and Fridays. It’s our job as handlers to make sure that we are her advocate. We make sure that she doesn’t hurt anybody, but by the same token, we make sure no one hurts her, either.”

Nick and Donna tell us that Piper loves visiting her people and if it’s been a couple of days, she’ll go to her therapy dog vest to let them know it is time to go to work.

If you want to learn more about the therapy dog program, visit Pet Therapy Dogs Facebook page by clicking here.

To learn more about Piper, you can visit her Facebook page here.