Dogs Comfort Bostonians After Marathon Bombings
Published at
Courtesy Lutheran Church Charities(BOSTON) — When golden retrievers visited Boston Marathon bombing victims this week, they put their paws up on the hospital beds to make it easier for patients to pet their soft, blonde fur.
First, the patients smiled, said Tim Hetzner, president of Lutheran Church Charities, which organizes K-9 Comfort Dogs. But soon, they started talking to the “furry counselors.”
“They tell the dog the story of what happened,” Hetzner said. “Dogs are great listeners…They can sense when someone is struggling.”
Hetzner brought five of the organization’s 60 comfort dogs to Boston: Addie, Isaiah, Luther, Maggie and Ruthie. Addie and Maggie had been working in Newtown, Conn., since Sandy Hook Elementary School re-opened, but they were off this week because the children were on spring break.
Maggie and the others are certified service dogs, but instead of being paired with individuals with disabilities, they go to churches, hospitals, schools and anywhere else they’re needed, Hetzner said.
The dogs, who arrived on Tuesday, spent several hours outside the First Lutheran Church of Boston on Berkeley Street, for instance, lying down on the red brick steps so that people could sit with them for a hug or two.
“Some people hold onto the dog for five minutes or more because that’s what they need,” Hetzner said. “It depends on the person and what they’re going through.”
There’s scientific evidence that dogs have a healing power around patients and people who’ve experienced traumatic events, said Dr. Emma Raizman, a pediatrician at the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital.
Being around dogs helps decrease patients’ stress by prompting the release of oxytocin, which is the hormone that bonds mothers to babies. Studies have shown that patients who are around dogs have increased levels of dopamine — the “happy” neurotransmitter that helps relieve depression — as well as endorphins and adrenaline.
“It’s actually been shown to help more than medication in a lot of the veterans, and you don’t have the side effect of medications,” Raizman said, adding that dogs also help in other ways, too. “For people who have been through a traumatic experience, it helps them feel cared for and gives them the sense that they’re able to care for someone else. It gives them a sense of control over things.”
She said hugging and talking to a dog can also help people deal with their feelings in a less complicated way than divulging them to another person.
Lynn Belkin, who coordinates the Pawprints Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, said she has reached out to Hetzner’s group to see if any of her eight volunteer dogs could help.
She said this week has been business as usual for Pawprints, but one of the dogs may have visited a marathon bomb victim. Belkin’s group often doesn’t know why a child is in the hospital.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio