Therapy Dog

 

It sounds strange to say dogs help therapy, but there are dogs that do this. My youngest sister, who has a dog named Charlie, went to England for two years on a business trip. Because people use the bus or train rather than a car in Europe, dogs are supposed to have a certificate that verifies them as a ¡°therapy dog¡± if they want to take the public transportation freely. Because of that, she invested lots of time and money to have her dog get this certificate a year before she headed for England. My sister quietly whispered into my ear that all the expenses are available for tax deduction, and her stingy husband had planned everything. After Charlie passed the test, they dropped by my house for a celebration. Nothing had changed except that he was wearing a sign around his neck and vest on him which read: ¡®therapy dog.¡¯ With this on, it is said that he can freely pass through any public place.

 

But I didn¡¯t understand why the dog is called a ¡®therapy dog¡¯ so I asked my sister. According to her, since in a hospital, especially in a children¡¯s hospital, bringing dogs in times of visitation is effective on kids, people bring dogs in even for adults. Rather than sitting alone in the hospital, playing with dogs and petting them, helps them to recover their health.

 

Receiving tax deduction in America is a great privilege. I was once disappointed when I learned that I couldn¡¯t get a tax deduction for sending our kids to private school. But hearing that the expenses for training a dog are tax deductible, it seems absurd. I asked what kind of education dogs receive for such special treatment. I imagined a few difficult and hard to learn special techniques or skills but the answer was something unexpected. According to the test dogs take, they need to keep sitting when ordered to sit until they are told to come by their owner. Even in the midst of noise they should look at their owners only, without paying attention to their surroundings. Furthermore, even when kids pull their ears or legs and bother them, they still need to keep their post. Namely, they become dog dolls.

 

It sounded so easy that I thought, ¡°They act snobby just for that,¡± and asked again what the dogs do when they visit the hospital. When I heard the answer I thought once again that is really nothing. I imagined that they might do some tricks to make kids laugh, or bring shoes by the order of kids, or change the TV channels, or open and close the door, or bring in nurses when necessary, etc. However, the answer was that most of the daily routine of the ¡®therapy dogs¡¯ is just to lie next to the patients. A simple act of being with them, without doing anything special in and of itself, is said to be therapy. A therapy dog that does not do anything but is simply with a patient¡¦sort of pathetic, and yet a special dog it is.        

 

I have a young friend I witnessed to twenty years ago. One day, I received a call from him who said that his mother (who was not yet sixty) had suddenly passed away. Let alone the funeral preparation, he wasn¡¯t prepared for such a situation at all, so he was running about in confusion and asked me what to do. I myself had the funeral of my father when I was a teenager. Thirty years ago, it was the first funeral for Koreans in the San Jose area, and with no relatives around, I had to do my duty as the oldest son as I learned everything along the way. Tracking back to my memories of the time, I explained what I knew to him. On the day of the funeral, I went early because he asked me to do simultaneous translation from English to Korean at the funeral, but it wasn¡¯t necessary since most of the people didn¡¯t feel uncomfortable in English anyways. I wanted to be of any help and so I asked him, and his answer was that he was thankful for me just being next to him. At the end of the procession, when it was time to say a final good-bye right before closing the casket of his mother, he at the front line suddenly began to wail. Since the time before I got married to when he was a middle school student and his sister was in elementary school, I began to bring them to church and knew everything about them including marriage counseling, his school work, and his friends. I wanted to help him in any way I could, but I just had to stand there without any words or deeds at the moment except lending my shoulder to him and his sister who were crying.

 

Looking back, I know that nothing would bring any comfort to them and I just needed to be there with them. Even if I am put in the same situation again, there still isn¡¯t any special therapy or comfort I could give. I just need to lend them my shoulder when they cry, and just lend my ear rather than speaking.

 

I remember the movie ¡°Top Gun,¡± the only movie I watched with my wife when I was dating her. At the end, when giving Maverick the order to move, his mentor Viper encourages him by saying ¡°I will fly with you.¡± Indeed, the word, ¡°being with you¡± is the best therapy that implies complete trust of another person as well as a word of comfort and encouragement. When putting this word into practice, we can be a person of real therapy.

 

My dog Mola, though she didn¡¯t go through any training, must be born to be a therapy dog since she always sticks to me like a leech - never leaving my side. I fall into a delusional state when she is next to me, as if all the worries of the world disappear and I¡¯m just the most loved person in the world.

 

Ministry of ¡°being with¡± is similar to the therapy dog. Added to this, there is a verse said by someone I like and respect most in my favorite book: ¡°I will be with you until the end of ages.¡± What a great man! What I need the most is not something being done for me, but being with me which makes me feel the most secure.