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AUBURN, Ala. (AP) — Just inside Auburn University's Miller Hall and to the left, Dr. Stuart Pope's office is a sort of magnet for nursing students. With 4-year-old golden retriever Miller and 6-year-old Labrador Choa behind his desk, Pope has jokingly dubbed his office Grand Central Station.
"Nursing school is pretty stressful," he said. "They go over there and roll around, or they may get the dogs and go for a walk. I've had students that will go find a green space and sit down, and when they do that, there's usually a whole bunch of other students coming in and seeing what the dogs do."
Pope, along with Miller, Choa and retired shih tzu Aubie, started CAREing Paws at the Auburn University School of Nursing about five years ago. The Canines Assisting in Rehabilitation and Education program surpassed its fundraising goal of $8,000 during the first Tiger Day of Giving earlier this month, which will enable Pope and his students to take Miller and Choa on even more animal-assisted therapy visits after the New Year. The program has traditionally been funded through private donations.
"Basically, we work with a lot of different groups in the sense that we work with older adults; we go to nursing homes," Pope explained. "We work with elementary schools with children reading to the dogs. We go to work with East Alabama Mental Health. We work with hospitals, East Alabama Medical Center. We work with veterans. It's based on the theory of what they call the human-animal bond. We don't exactly know why animals make us feel good; we just know they do. So we use that to help facilitate making people feel better, which makes people sometimes get better.
"It's been proven that it lowers people's blood pressure, lowers people's heart rate. We did a research project with older adults with dementia and found that it helped some with their memory. It makes their behavior better, makes them feel better. We work with some children with reading, and they read better."
Pope and his canine companions also teach an elective class for nursing students to learn how to administer animal-assisted therapy. What started as a class of eight a few semesters ago has now grown to more than 60, and the group travels to at least one off-campus location each week to serve the community. The new 89,000-square-foot nursing building will even boast its own animal-assisted therapy room.
"We don't think there's another program like this in another nursing school in the United States," Pope said, adding one of the goals of the CAREing Paws program is for AU nursing graduates to take the skills they've learned at Auburn to hospitals across the country.
Pope also uses the animal-assisted therapy class to teach students nursing is not just a medical profession.
"Nursing is its own profession. Though we would like to see people cured, even if we can't cure somebody, if we've made their day better, then we've done our job. It's a caring profession," Pope said.
"We try to make the students understand that just because I can't cure somebody doesn't mean I can't help somebody. We don't believe that animal-assisted therapy cures cancer or autism or any of those things. What we do know is that when we go to a nursing home, we leave with people feeling better. When we go to East Alabama Mental Health, they can't wait until we get back. When we go in and work with the children in a reading program, we know that they can read better when we get through. We're happy with what we can do."
Less than 24 hours before they go on a visit, Miller and Choa are treated to a bath. Their nails are cut and their coats brushed out, and Pope spritzes them with a natural spray that keeps dander down. Four times a year, they go to the vet to be checked for parasites or infection.
"We brush their teeth; clean their ears," Pope said. "Just like you would a child."
While their grooming habits are routine, how Miller and Choa interact on visits depends on the location. The pair regularly go to East Alabama Medical Center, where the therapy is more structured. At the veterans' home in Union Springs, Pope lets the dogs "do their thing." At a nursing home, Miller and Choa often visit residents one-by-one, sometimes the therapy is just sitting still while a resident pets their heads.
Pope's first foray into animal-assisted therapy was with shih tzu Aubie after his mother was moved into a nursing home. He would take the little dog for a visit and quickly saw its impact on the home's residents.
"It is a lot of work," Pope conceded. "But, it's hard to explain when you watch somebody's face light up when the dog walks in the room. It's instant. People that are very sad become very happy, instantly. When we first went to East Alabama Mental Health, the first day we went, we were invited in. They wanted us to be there, but they were uncertain as to the effect the dogs would have on the clientele, and I understand that. We were there probably three or four minutes, and the director of clinical services walked up to me and said, 'I see people smiling that I've treated for two years, and I've never seen them smile.' They're smiling; they're laughing. They're sitting in the floor playing with the dogs. Change in attitude. For people that haven't been around it, it's very eye-opening. For me, I guess that's what fuels me. When you watch people's lives change right before your eyes."
As the dogs sat at his feet, Pope scrolled through a camera roll full of smiling faces, the result of therapy at the paws of Miller and Choa.
"If you ever get a chance to see it," he said, "it's just absolutely remarkable."
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Information from: Opelika-Auburn News, http://www.oanow.com/
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