To the Canines Sandy Meadow Farm Trains Therapy Dogs to Help Kids

Being a hospital patient typically means a loss of control — particularly for a child. That’s why having a dog around is such a blast.

“There’s an incredible language between a dog and a child,” said Missy Kielbasa, founder and head trainer of Sandy Meadow Farm in Westfield, which, as one of its many programs, trains therapy dogs to visit sick kids at Shriners Children’s Hospital.

The dogs in the program are taught basic hand signs and tricks that children can copy, she explained.

“It’s incredible to see a small child giving hand signals to an 85-pound rottweiler,” she said. “To see the look on their face when they have that power — they’re having a great time, and for the short time we’re there, it helps them forget where they are. For so much of their day, they’re having stuff done to them, so it’s nice to see them be in control.”

Kielbasa, who has been training dogs professionally for 20 years, opened Sandy Meadow Farm in 1993, with basic obedience and companion-dog training forming the core of her business. But in 1999, the Melha Shrine approached her about creating a volunteer therapy-dog unit for the children’s hospital in Springfield.

Since launching the K-9 for Kids Pediatric Therapy Dog Unit, with all time donated cost-free by Kielbasa and a team of volunteer handlers, she has seen the program grow to its current roster of 21 dogs, ages 2 to 12, representing breeds as diverse as border collies, German shepherds, shelties, rottweilers, labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, and a half-dozen more.

In addition to the hospital visits, dogs are trained to visit Westfield schools as part of a literacy program, listening intently as children read them books to increase their verbalization, fluency with words, and even their self-esteem.
Making the Cut

These aren’t jobs for any old pooch. Not all dogs whose owners volunteer them for the program are accepted.

Specifically, all dogs in the unit must successfully pass the AKC Good Citizenship Test, the Therapy Dog International certification test, and the seven-week Pediatric Therapy Dog Unit Training Class held at Sandy Meadow Farm. To even enter the pediatric course, dogs must already exhibit excellent social skills around other dogs, have moderate obedience skills, and must “absolutely adore being around kids,” as Kielbasa put it.

When she first started K-9 for Kids, about a dozen dogs were brought for consideration, but Kielbasa accepted only about half. “They have to be dog-social and people-social,” she said.

“From there, the dogs are specially trained to handle a lot of environmental mishaps that could happen around kids,” she continued, adding that the course requirements have evolved quite a bit from when she first started. “We went in with a plan, but when the dogs were actually doing the job, we realized what else needed to be done.”

Dogs are taught tricks and retrieving for functional and entertainment purposes, as well as exposed to various pieces of medical equipment that they must learn to maneuver and accept. Groups of 10 to 20 children and their parents are included in the training program to teach the dogs to recognize and cope with natural child reactions including crying, grabbing, gripping, avoidance, running, screaming, fear, and hugging.

“We bring in different age groups of children every week — infants, toddlers, preschool, grade school, high school,” Kielbasa said. “We get people up in stretchers with IV poles, or in wheelchairs. And we make a lot of noise — we even have a CD of a screaming baby. That’s how some dogs are weeded out.”

There’s a purpose behind this seeming chaos. In the hospital setting, the dogs have several roles: not only to provide the patient with that aforementioned control, but also to decrease anxiety and stress for patients, provide a diversion from the hospital routine, stimulate physical activity and social interaction, and otherwise enhance the patient’s therapeutic goals.

Handlers are trained, too; they learn how to keep a visitation safe and how to read stress in a dog’s demeanor and quickly cut off an uncomfortable situation. And no dog is allowed to go into a therapy session without its own handler. “When we certify them, they’re certified as a team,” said Kielbasa. “A dog may not visit with anyone else.”

One inevitable downside is the disappointment some children feel when they have a surgery or other procedure scheduled for a dog-visitation day.

“Some of the kids at Shriners will wait all week, knowing that the dogs are coming,” Kielbasa said with a smile. “Patients don’t want to be discharged the day they’re coming.”

Back to School

No one has to convince Kielbasa of the magic dogs work on children.

A certified veterinary technician with a degree in Animal Science from UMass Amherst, she’s worked around dogs long enough to see the emotional impact they can have. Sandy Meadow Farm’s therapy-dog volunteers have also taken their skills to Baystate Medical Center, Ronald McDonald House, and Brightside for Families and Children, as well as to elementary-school hallways.

Leslie Clark-Yvon, principal of Franklin Avenue School in Westfield, explained that the K-9 program there, called ‘Read to Rover,’ teams the dogs with children — typically struggling readers — who read books to their new, furry friends.

“It’s fun to watch — you would think the dog is listening, the way it moves its head when the child turns the page. It’s hysterical,” said Clark-Yvon. “It has provided extra practice in fluency and reading comfort for children of all grade levels, and it’s a great motivator. The children will tell me they’ve picked out a dog story for the dog.”

There have been social benefits as well, she said, citing the example of a girl who had been petrified of dogs to the point where she would bolt in the other direction if she encountered one. “Obviously, we didn’t put her in the program. But she did get to the point where she could be in the same room with the dog. We felt that was a nice offshoot of what’s happening.”

Meanwhile, Sandy Meadow Farm, with its staff of nine registered trainers and assistants, continues to train some 500 to 600 dogs each year, mainly as household companions, but also in competition and tricks, in addition to K-9 for Kids.

“The majority of our clients just want good, mannerly animals to live with, so we focus most of our training on family-friendly skills,” she said. Seeing some of those dogs blossom into therapy dogs is just gravy. Well, kibble with gravy.

“This never ceases to be rewarding for me when I see what dogs can do, and their ability with children,” Kielbasa said. “It floors me how natural some dogs are in recognizing what needs to be done. It takes some dogs in the program time, but then all of a sudden you see them understand what their job is, and it’s an amazing thing to watch them work.”