Drs. Spot, Fido, Rex: Please Scrub Your Paws

David Quinlan had finished Thursday’s round of medical treatment. Lying in his darkened hospital room, the 6-year-old brain tumor patient watched television with his mom and dad and waited to go home.

Then in came Becks, a 5-year-old German shepherd and trained pet therapist who brightens the days of Children’s Hospital of Orange County’s littlest, and often sickest, patients.

David smiled and was helped to sit up so he could better see and pet Becks, who gently put his front paws on the boy’s bed. David and his mom and dad stroked Becks. They talked with the dog’s owner, Marie Weller. And the hospital stay was briefly transformed into a quite unhospital-like experience.

“He was happy he could see the dog,” David’s mother, Barbara Quinlan, said. “We have a golden retriever at home.”

The two-year-old pet therapy program at CHOC is the only one of its kind in the county. Currently, five dogs and their owners volunteer for the program, which allows the pets to visit the hospital’s sick children and bring some sense of the outside world with them.

“The pet therapy program is one of the most exciting things we’ve done,” said Dr. Robert Manniello, CHOC’s medical director. “The benefits are astonishing. It brings normalcy into the hospital setting, plus the love in the animal’s eyes can be seen in the child.”

Sponsored by the Animal Health Foundation, the pet therapy program is primarily a volunteer effort, with some administrative assistance provided by the foundation and CHOC. The dogs are chosen and trained by foundation director Connie Jankowski, who has worked for 15 years in animal behavior. The pets are brought into the hospital once a week, in a staggered schedule.

Jankowski said dogs able to work with CHOC’s children have more than just a sweet temperament. Most are already well trained, but require a few months of additional instruction, she said.

The dogs and their owners were honored during a hospital luncheon Thursday, as part of the observances for National Pet Week. Dog owners were presented with plaques, while Becks, Rosie, Gidget, Chauncey and an absent Sydney were given gigantic bones.

Stories are told of children who speak to the dogs after not uttering words for weeks, and of the joy felt by a sick or dying child who is visited by one of the dogs.

“Its amazing. We don’t know how it works, but it works wonderfully,” said Manniello.

Stephanie Ross was just out of surgery and was in her room recuperating Thursday. Her mom had run out to the toy store to bring her some stuffed dogs, but seeing the real-life golden retriever Rosie made the 6-year-old’s day, said her father, Steve Ross.

Down the hall, Theresa Ragland, 13, still sore from stomach surgery the day before, bent over to pet Rosie.

“We need things like this,” said her mother, Cecelia Ragland. “It’s so boring being in the hospital.”