Day: July 20, 2013

On our first visit, to the dementia ward together Saturday morning, Red and I  had some beautiful moments, as I did with Izzy. I have learned that the demented are usually on cable TV shooting their mouths off, not in dementia units. Dementia wards are usually at one end of nursing homes, you need to punch in a special code to open the doors  to get in and then again to get out. Dementia units also reveal themselves through the toys and dolls that are all around, dementia patients often revert to their childhoods.  You can always spot a dementia nurse, too, they are invariably patient and quick to laugh. A sense of humor is important in the dementia wards.

We knocked on one door, asked if we could come in, and Rebecca turned off her TV – “lot of junk,” she said – and called for us to come in. She was almost totally deaf. She leaned over Red, stroked his head and I told her he came from Ireland. “Oh, Ireland,” she said, “do you know there is no word for “love” in Gaelic?” This was a surprise, it was already not the conversation I was expecting in the memory care unit, and I knelt down as she was hard of hearing and when she looked at Red her eyes glistened and she spoke of the little dog that had gone to live with her daughter. “Is this my dog?,” she asked, and I said no, I never lie to people in dementia wards, it is disrespectful in my mind, and she asked me whose dog was it?, and I said, “he is my dog. He came from Ireland.” And she asked me if I knew the name for “Red” in Gaelic and I said I did not, but I would love to hear it.

And she pronounced it for me, urging me to roll the “r’s,” it sound like “Rheeaha,” and I repeated it several times, and she shook her head and said I didn’t quite get it, and then she patted Red for a few minutes and he was still, picking up the thread of the moment, as he does, and then she turned to me and said “Is this my dog?” and I said no, he was my dog, and I asked her why there was no word for “love” in Gaelic, and she said she could not imagine.

A few minutes later, Red and I were across the hall in another room and I heard an awful keening, a sobbing, a loud and sorrowful moaning and Red and I followed the sound back into the room of the woman we had been visiting and  tears were streaming down her cheeks, “no,no, no, no, no!” she was shouting and I walked Red up to her and he put his head on her lap and she looked up at me in shock and then down at him and stared.  She stopped crying, stopped moaning, and then, a smile.

She looked up at me, looked confused and then down at Red, and the fog seemed to clear.

“Oh,” she said. “What a sweet and beautiful creature.” And then she turned and looked up at me.

“Is he my dog?”

“You tell me,” I said.

Another chapter of Red’s remarkable life unfolded in Manchester,Vt. this morning when Red concluded his third nursing home evaluation successfully. Kristin Commeau, an evaluator for Therapy Dogs Of Vermont, a respected and experienced non-profit therapy dog organization, passed Red and he will get a blue bandanna and a tag and a certification certificate. Kristin was impressive, she watched Red for three hours, gave me some valuable tips and observations about how to work with him – one of them was for me to slow down and give him time to adjust to this new work, slow down is usually the advice I get from everybody, including Maria.

I was much impressed with this therapy training group. The  training was thorough and professional and I chose this group to work with because of that. Red had to undergo hours of testing – people charged at him (so did dogs) grabbed him, tried to rattle and surprise him and Kristin came with us for every minute of our three hours of evaluations. I did hospice work with my border collie Izzy for four years in New York State, but there were many things Kristin pointed out to me that will be valuable in our new therapy work, which will include working with veterans and some hospice work. There are lots of people with therapy dogs and I have often been surprised at their lack of training, I am very grateful for the thoroughness and conscientiousness of this group, all volunteers. It means something to graduate from there.

We went into the memory care – dementia – unit of the nursing home where we were training, I am much drawn to this work. As with Izzy, I am encouraging Red to focus on people, and he is picking up on that. One woman began shouting and crying and Red went up to her and his presence calmed her – this is when therapy work is the most meaningful for me, when you see a powerful connection that is emotional and penetrates both to the dog and the patient.

I feel I am also fulfilling a wish of Dr. Karen Thompson that Red use his gifts with people in this way, she wanted a full life for him, not just a life as a working dog, and now Red has both and it is for me as well as for her that I do this work, it is healing, affirming and among the most meaningful things to do with a dog. People are so happy to see them, their faces and spirits just light.

This was hard and good work, not simple or easy. Kristin cut us no slack, she performed her due diligence with a sense of advocacy for the dog as well as the patients, I learned a lot from her, Red and I will put it to good use. This is an exciting moment for me, I am committed to giving a dog like Red every opportunity to use his great heart and skills to the fullest of his potential, to give him the life dogs were meant to live. Red is a spirit dog, he touches the hearts of people. One woman sat on a bench and cried when she saw him, and she began speaking commands to him in Gaelic – he responded to them. She taught me the Gaelic work for Red, and I didn’t expect to hear this from an elderly woman in a wheelchair in Vermont. Amazing moments.

I congratulate this amazing dog as he begins the next chapter of his journey, I thank Therapy Dogs of Vermont for giving me so much confidence in approaching it. Good for you, Red Dog, you have the greatest heart. Many stories to come.

I call this my Mystical Milkhouse, it is my favorite milk house, I love the way it sits in the bosom of this old tree and looks out over the valley. I think it is a haunted place, filled with angels, spirits, ghosts and demons, I hear them laughing and shrieking and calling to me and I might just be made, or they might be but I visited my milk house yesterday, the bank thermometer said it was 100 degrees and I wanted to capture that feeling. The spirits don’t care, they were dancing in the heat.

Last night as we got into bed, the power went out and stayed out for 10 hours. The bedroom was stifling, we came downstairs to sleep and tried to figure out what we might do if it was still out for the Open House. We didn’t sleep much, we did haul buckets to the toilet from the stream in the pasture, we salvaged some food for breakfast. This morning, when I left to take Red for his final therapy dog evaluations, the power  came back on. Outages always make me think of the farmers who built our farmhouse and how they all of the things we do and much more with no power at all. We are nothing but lucky.