Funeral Therapy Dogs Provide Furry Comfort to Mourners
“If you’ve ever lost a loved one, you know how very difficult those first few weeks can be...
To help mourners cope, Texas is about to get its first certified funeral therapy dog. Kermit, a 1-year-old border collie mix, has been trained in how to deal with grieving people...
Kermit belongs to Melissa Unfred, who works for Affordable Burial & Cremation Service in Austin. She began taking him to work with her about 8 months ago & immediately noticed his demeanor changed when he was inside the business.
...‘You see that as a hand will go out to pet him, it’s like an immediate sigh of relief.’
Kermit can instinctively determine who’s suffering the most. ‘He’s something of a chameleon — he can kind of sense the energy in the room,’...'Sometimes I will start to go upstairs & Kermit isn’t behind me. He ended up staying behind … He just moves himself into the position where he’s closest to the primary griever.'
In New York, a goldendoodle named Lulu has been comforting mourners at Ballard-Durand Funeral & Cremation Services for the past 2 years.
Just like Kermit, Lulu has ‘an uncanny knack for knowing who needs her,’ Matthew Fiorillo, president of the funeral home, told TODAY. ‘She’ll park herself right next to an older person to let them pet her one minute & the next she’s prancing around with kids. It’s been really impressive to watch.’
Humans need to touch, Fiorillo said. ‘Even just petting her can be a subtle distraction from the tremendous amount of grief people are going through,’...
Vinny, another goldendoodle, is currently training to become a funeral therapy dog at the Kuhn Funeral Home in West Reading, Pa.
‘Death is hard for all of us,’ Michael Kuhn, the funeral home’s president, told WFMZ. ‘Death is sometimes, I think, even harder at younger ages, so to have sort of a distraction & a loving creature next to you, I think that’s going to serve really well.’...
...Just as therapy dogs comforting hospital patients have become commonplace nowadays, more & more funeral homes across the country are adding therapy dogs to their staffs. As Kermit, Lulu, & Vinny have proven, funeral therapy dogs truly help make the process of mourning a little less painful...”
Laura Goldman
June 20/2017
care2.com
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