“These sPecial grief counselors lisTen wiThouT giving advice, offer uncondiTional love and PROVIDE A WARM—AND FURRY— SHOULDER TO CRY ON.”
Comfort Dogs provide respite from whatever stress and anxiety they may be feeling. It’s medically proven that petting a dog lowers your heart rate and blood pressure. It also produces a stress relieving hormone in your body.” In Orlando, the dogs attended vigils and memorials, worked at counseling centers and hospitals, visited the medi- cal examiner and the mayor’s office and made themselves available on the streets of Orlando. They even consoled staff at the location of the tragedy, the nightclub The Pulse. These special grief counselors listen without giving advice, offer uncondi- tional love and provide a warm—and furry—shoulder to cry on. They allow people in distress to relax their guard and express their vulnerability to a non- judgmental being. Hetzner says that many people would start petting the dogs and break down crying.
And sometimes, they would start smiling. At the hospital many of the vic- tims couldn’t get out of their bed, so the dogs had to be brought up to them. Het- zner says they all started smiling, and in some cases, even started talking. The LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs are somewhat regrettably pros at their jobs, having brought comfort after tragedies such as tornadoes in Oklahoma, the school shooting in Newtown, Connecti- cut and the Boston Marathon bombing, among others. The dogs helped many of the people affected by shooting to open up. Het- zner related the story of one man who wasn’t talking to anyone. At first, he just stood there, but then slowly knelt down and started petting the dog. He asked a couple of questions about the dog and then volunteered that he’d lost his friend in the shooting. But it went further than that. After spending some more quiet time with the dog, he
revealed that he felt responsible for his friend’s death as he had invited him to visit from out of town and took him to the nightclub. Hetzner explains that a simple inter- action with a dog can turn into the start of healing, which begins with process- ing what they’ve been through—and the key to that processing is being able to share it. Comfort dogs are also known as emotional support dogs, and are now a familiar sight following trag- edies. They are not considered service dogs under the terms of the Americans With Disabilities Act, but often play an equally vital role. LCC expanded its canine com- fort dog mission in 2014 to a sepa- rate branch, Kare 9 Military Ministry, which brings comfort to military veter- ans and their families as well as active duty personnel.
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