Community Outreach • Community Benefit

A great way to bring joy and comfort to hospital patients

The NCH Animal-Assisted Therapy program has been proven to help a patient’s physical and emotional well-being. A loveable dog can raise your spirits, lower stress and reduce your blood pressure. Volunteer dog and handler teams only visit willing hospital patients.

Many healthcare organizations across the country have incorporated animals into the patient healing process. Results from the Animal-Assisted Therapy program at UCLA Medical Center show improvement in cardiopulmonary pressures and neuroendocrine levels, as well as reduced anxiety in heart patients.

Need more volunteers

We continue to recruit additional dog and handler teams to expand our program.

• A team consists of a dog and its handler, who must be the owner of the pet and at least 18 years old.
• Therapy dogs can be any breed, but must be in good health, obedient, enjoy people and get along with other dogs.
• Volunteers need to complete an application.
• Qualifying dogs go through a two-hour temperament and obedience evaluation by professional dog trainers.
• Teams that pass will attend a three-day training course at the hospital that includes mock and trainer-supervised patient visits, and a briefing on hospital policies and proper infection control practices.
• There are modest fees to help offset the costs of the temperament evaluation and training.
• To download an application suitable for printing, click here.
• For more details on the Animal-Assisted Therapy program, contact Diane Colville at 847.618.7968 or dcolville@nch.org.
• Sponsorships are available to support the dog and handler teams

“The animals provide a unique dimension of care that is unlike any other therapy,” said Diane Colville, MS, manager of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Animal-Assisted Therapy at NCH. “The pure joy and comfort that the visits bring to the patients is remarkable. We now have over 60 dog and handler teams who visit over 900 patients per month .”

Comments the Hospital has received include:

• “My daughter smiled for the 1st time in days. She loves animals! Thank you for bringing the dogs to visit.”
  (Parent of a patient in Pediatrics)
• “Thank you for such a wonderful experience. Having pet therapy lifted my spirits and made my day joyful. I loved it!”
  (Patient in the Ambulatory Infusion Clinic)
• “Dakota was so well behaved and calm, she made me feel calm also. What a sweetheart! This program is wonderful”;
  (Patient on 4 North)