On Thursday my youngest greyhound, Aisha (not a Lifeline dog, but well known by many staff and volunteers) made her first visit as a Pets as Therapy dog. Together we went to the local hospice, previously visited by Monty, the idea being that one week I will visit with him and the following week with Aisha.
To begin with Aisha was quite nervy and anxious and kept trying to pull me to the door leading outside, but with some coaxing and fuss (and treats!) she began to settle. Unfortunately she did not really present herself in positions that made it easy for the patients to fuss her and, despite being a girl who really loves a fuss, didn’t particularly want to be by anyone other than me.
This wasn’t helped by a thunder and lightening storm as Aisha is very afraid of them. However as the morning went on she grew more bold and did begin to approach other people for fusses (especially if I wasn’t fussing her).
For some reason Aisha was far more inclined to respond well to the male staff and patients rather than the women, I’m not sure why as she has very little contact with men usually, but again this did improve during the time we were there. Overall she did quite well. I knew Monty (who was an absolute star) would be a hard act to follow, but given time I think Aisha will become a good P.A.T dog too.
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Lovely to read about Aisha and Monty starting out in their new careers! I recently had “Sleepy George” assessed and he has started visiting our local hospice on a ***-share basis with Ben. It can take a while for them to get used to the unfamiliar surroundings and people, but as you say treats often work wonders. Ben is now so used to approaching people for a pat that he does it when we are out walking and always looks so sad if people hurry by and ignore him.