Angel on a Leash

by David Frei

  In 2010, Cherilyn helped engineer the proclamation of New York State Therapy Dog Day for October 2, the day of the block party. The proclamation, presented by State Senator Liz Krueger, recognized the partnership of Ronald McDonald House New York and Angel On A Leash in providing a therapy dog program for the young pediatric oncology patients and their families.

  The proclamation by State Senator Krueger read:

  WHEREAS, Ronald McDonald House of New York, Inc., provides a temporary “home-away-from-home” for pediatric cancer patients and their families in a supportive and caring environment, which encourages and nurtures the development of child-to-child and parent-to-parent support systems; and

  WHEREAS, Ronald McDonald House of New York, Inc., is the largest facility of its type in the world; and

  WHEREAS, on October 2nd, 2010, Ronald McDonald House of New York is hosting its Third Annual Block Party, featuring food, live music, entertainment, safety awareness, health screenings, and educational programs, on East 73rd Street between First and York Avenues; and

  WHEREAS, the Ronald McDonald House New York-Angel On A Leash program provides therapy dogs for pediatric cancer patients and their families; and

  WHEREAS, Angel On A Leash enhances health and quality of life through play and enrichment activities which promote the human-animal bond, and

  WHEREAS, therapy dogs help boost morale, self-esteem, and overall feelings of well-being for those dealing with chronic and life-threatening illnesses; and

  WHEREAS, studies have shown that petting a dog releases beneficial hormones into the bloodstream known to be associated with healing and feelings of well-being; and

  WHEREAS, by initiating and maintaining the relaxation response, pets take a person’s focus off of their pain and elevate their mood; and

  WHEREAS, children who spend time with pets develop higher levels of empathy and learn responsibility; and

  WHEREAS, therapy dog programs such as Angel On A Leash are deserving of recognition for their contributions to the health and well-being of New Yorkers; therefore be it

  RESOLVED, that I, State Senator Liz Krueger declare that October 2nd, 2010, is hereby recognized as New York State Therapy Dog Day.

  Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital is a great hospital and a great partner for Angel On A Leash. It is where the program was born with Westminster back in 2004, and today it is ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation. NewYork-Presbyterian is among the top ten hospitals in the country and is the top-ranked hospital in the metropolitan New York area.

  In the early days, when proceeds from the sale of the Westminster poster were earmarked for Angel On A Leash, the hospital hosted a great event each year for the unveiling of the poster. The previous year’s Best in Show dog would make an appearance and help with the celebration and photo opps. Josh (Newfoundland, 2004), Carlee (German Shorthaired Pointer, 2005), Rufus (Colored Bull Terrier, 2006), and Uno (Beagle, 2008) got a lot of attention and flashes for Westminster, the hospital, and the therapy dog program through the years. The Angel On A Leash teams who volunteered regularly at the hospital would also attend, making it a canine-rich day at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

  The highlight of each year’s event was the gathering of the children in the hospital’s Winter Garden in the ground-floor lobby. To see them react to the dogs was a treat for all, from the media to the parents to the hospital staff and medical professionals. This was a great illustration of the principles that make therapy dogs effective at their jobs—and what a bonus for Angel On A Leash to have some of the world’s top pediatricians on hand to talk to the media about what they saw every day with the dogs and the children. We can talk about the intuitive feelings and the feel-good stuff all day long, and while it makes sense and it works, it’s nice to hear the medical professionals talk about it in their terms, too.

  The event in the Winter Garden was often broadcast via closed-circuit television to the children in the hospital who could not attend in person. Then, afterward, the dogs would head up to the patients’ floors to visit them. The attention to detail, with Toni Millar, the hospital’s director of child life, leading the way, was amazing and made the event not only fun but also beneficial for the children and families.

  NY1, the New York television news channel, selected Angel On A Leash as its New Yorker of the Week in February 2009 and shot teams visiting at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. The New York Daily News did a feature about the program, Animal Planet shot on location a couple of times, and George Michael’s nationally syndicated Sports Machine traveled up to the hospital to shoot a feature. Our Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital volunteer teams were visible in the community at street fairs, block parties, events in Central Park, and other media opportunities all over town. Delta Society shot a public-relations video at the hospital and even held a board meeting on site.

  A number of our volunteers were honored for their work at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Greer Griffith, Angel On A Leash program director, was honored at the United Hospital Fund’s 16th Annual Hospital Auxilian and Volunteer Achievement Awards ceremony in 2009, joining honorees who had been chosen from among New York City’s more than 50,000 health care volunteers from hospitals throughout the five boroughs.

  I am very proud of Greer, and we are lucky to have her with Angel. She has always been a great warrior for therapy dogs in general and Angel On A Leash in particular. Greer and her black Labs, Clayton and Fauna, were among the first teams to make therapy visits to the Family Assistance Center at Ground Zero (Pier 94) following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Greer has been very involved with New Alternatives for Children, a New York City agency that supports children with special needs, and before that, she was involved in hippotherapy (therapy horses) for kids participating in the Special Olympics.

  When Westminster approved the Angel On A Leash therapy dog program, I grabbed Greer immediately to be our director of programs, a job she has held ever since. Her late husband, Richard, was on our board for many years as well; we miss him dearly.

  I also had the good fortune to have three of the country’s top therapy dog experts—Christi Dudzik, Mary Ehrhart, and Dr. Stephanie LaFarge—say yes to me when I asked them to join the Angel board. My other current board members, Chuck Bessant, Ranny Green, and Tom Lasley, bring us a lot, too, and we are all working hard to get Angel On A Leash doing all of the things that we’d like it to do.

  “Give them a chance to talk and smile and laugh, and you might just make their day. They might make yours, too.”

  Therapy on the Street

  A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Pythagoras, or whatever geometric whiz came up with that one, never had a dog.

  When the weather was right, I would walk one of the dogs to my Westminster office, just a little less than 3 miles from my apartment, as the taxi travels. But, as the dog walks, it was certainly more than 3 miles. It’s a forty-five minute walk without a dog; with a dog, it’s at least an hour. That straight-line stuff applies only to a dog’s route to his food bowl.

  Belle would be at the door, ready to go. She seemed to sense when I was going to take her to work with me. I’m not sure if it had something to do with the weather or some vibe I was giving off, but she knew. I’m guessing that it was the vibe. After all, that’s what she was working from when she did her therapy dog thing, and she was so good at that.

  By now, Teigh was more into walking the couple of blocks over to Finnegan’s Wake for dinner on the sidewalk. He was slowing down in his life, so it was just Belle and me most of the time. A few times, I walked both of them to the office, but it was a lot of work walking two dogs that far. Often I would arrive at the office looking as if I had run those 3 miles, in need of a shower at the end of a workout.

  Add to all of this the fact that many New Yorkers don’t understand and appreciate, as we did, the importance of walking two dogs on the sidewalk in the city during rush hour. We tried it a couple of times, but ev
entually I took to heart the ever-so-polite suggestions of some of the locals that perhaps we should not be taking up so much space on their sidewalks. So it became “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” most of the time—just Belle and me.

  Belle actually had a nice history of coming to work with me, dating back to my days in Seattle. At the time, Cheri and Teigh were a registered therapy team, and they would be visiting somewhere a couple of days a week, working for Healing Paws. Belle would come to the office with me, as we were not yet a registered therapy team.

  I had an office on a marina on Lake Union that I rented from a yacht brokerage; it was the greatest office I ever had. My doors opened right onto the dock, and Belle had a great time chasing the geese off the dock, something much appreciated by the locals who lived there on their boats.

  Brittanys—at least my Brittanys—are not particularly big water dogs. Belle wouldn’t intentionally jump in, but I had to fish her out of the water a couple of times. The first time was when she decided that she was going to chase a duck and her ducklings that were swimming by. As I watched Belle run right off the end of the dock, it appeared to me that she thought she was going to run out onto the water and play with them all. Ker-splash! It was quite funny, and I was still laughing as I pulled her back onto the dock, explaining to her the concept of a body of water and wondering if she had somehow heard the stories about Moses and Jesus and water from her mother, the chaplain-in-waiting.

  Another time, she was about to jump off the dock onto the back of one of the yachts that was moored right in front of my door. She started to jump, and I shouted at her just as she launched herself into the air. It was like a scene out of a Road Runner cartoon, where Wile E. Coyote is momentarily frozen in midair and has a helpless look on his face as he realizes that disaster is imminent.

  So Belle E. Coyote looked over her shoulder at me, and I swear she was in a cartoon still frame. Then she dropped straight into the water, ker-splash again, just short of her target.

  So, what do you have for me today, Belle? What is our next adventure? Just setting out with her on the journey was enough to bring a smile.

  Our usual route was to head west on 72nd Street and turn south on Park Avenue to Midtown. The sidewalks, generally speaking, are wider and cleaner on Park on the Upper East Side, and there is no commercial traffic allowed, no subways, and no buses, so it’s a little quieter.

  Of course, we got the usual amount of social opportunity along the way from dogs and their humans. Sometimes these encounters turned into chances for me to tell people about therapy dog work and invite them to get involved in a class. Sometimes we had to dodge a snarling Napoleon-complexed small dog or an overly romantic large male. Or maybe we met some eccentric types who wanted to share their history in dogs with us or tell us how the mayor has wronged them or divulge that they lived next door to some celebrity who partied too much.

  Belle loved them all. It was fun for me, too, but chances are that I wouldn’t have stopped or had conversations with any of them if it weren’t for Belle. It’s true of all of my dogs—they bring people into my life. And the next time I’m walking down that street, maybe without a dog, I just might stop and talk with them again.

  At 60th Street and Park Avenue, there is a beautiful big stone church. There’s a courtyard on the north side of the church that is the unlikely overnight accommodation to a few homeless guys who sleep there on cardboard. If we walked by early enough, they would be starting to stir.

  The first time we walked by, we heard a whistle. Belle and I looked up at the same time and saw a man sitting on his cardboard. He whistled again and called her: “Come here, girl!”

  She was at the end of the lead immediately and in his weathered face as fast as I could get her there. He gave her a big hug and started petting and scratching her. Belle was immediately his for life.

  “What a good girl,” he said with a subdued smile. “How does she do with birds?”

  “Pretty good,” I answered. “But she doesn’t see too many pheasants around here. Even on Park Avenue, the city bird of choice is still the pigeon, and she points them all.”

  He laughed as Belle started to push her hind end at him for some more scratches.

  “I used to have a great bird dog,” he said. “He looked kinda like her, only darker and he was bigger.”

  “Did you hunt with him?”

  “Yeah, a little…” His voice trailed off. He was probably somewhere in his past, in a field with his dog. Wherever his mind was taking him, it made him smile. Me, too.

  Belle knew that all of these guys wanted to see her. She was always eager to make the rounds here, and just about every one of them had something for her—a pet, a scratch, a hug, some nice words. She went to as many of them as she could find. I don’t know who got the bigger kick out of it, Belle or the guys, who probably all needed something to smile about.

  Not to sound too trite, but to me it seemed a little bit magical. These are people who I probably would have just walked right past on a normal day in my previous life. Over time, though, Belle taught me that they had something to offer us both, whether it was an observation about Park Avenue, thoughts on the New York weather, or wise words about life in general.

  The lesson learned was that these guys had lives, too, and stories to tell if you would hang in there long enough. Give them a chance to talk and smile and laugh, and you might just make their day. They might make yours, too. I think I can speak for Belle in saying that usually we both left there feeling good.

  At some point, we had to get off Park Avenue before it went under the MetLife Building at 46th Street. One morning, we turned onto 51st Street, crossed Madison Avenue and continued to Fifth Avenue. The Westminster office is on Madison, but I wanted to walk on Fifth Avenue, as it is a little roomier. There were more people, so I just had to keep Belle close and protect her from being stepped on.

  Belle could cause a traffic jam on the Fifth Avenue sidewalks because the people in business suits would stop for their morning dose of canine therapy, too. And you know what? The encounters with the suits weren’t much different from the encounters with the cardboard guys in the courtyard at the church. The only difference was that these people were dressed a little better and were rushing to get somewhere. But they were smiling when they walked away, too, even if they had to brush off a little dog hair from those suits.

  I always tried to get a morning look at the world-famous St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a historical Catholic church that sits between 51st and 50th Streets and between Madison and Fifth Avenues. One morning, Belle and I actually went into the church during morning Mass and sat in the back. The security people looked at us but let us pass. When it came time for Holy Communion, I walked up to the front of the church with Belle (she came along for the long walk up the aisle). I had never done that before, and I haven’t done it since. We wanted to be respectful, but I didn’t want to leave her tied up in the pew.

  After Mass, back out on the sidewalk, Belle led me to someone, and I was visiting with him when I realized that she was already elsewhere at the end of the leash. I turned and found her with her head on the lap of an older gentleman in a wheelchair. He was petting her and laughing, getting the biggest kick out of her.

  “What a beautiful dog,” he said. “What’s her name?”

  “This is Belle,” I said, “and I’m David, Belle’s dad.”

  “Well, hello, Belle and David. How nice to meet you. My name is Robert.”

  We were in Robert’s marketing area. He had his chair in a strategic, busy location, in the middle of the traffic flow at the corner of 50th and Fifth, right in front of the church. He was obviously a “regular” at this location, as many of the people who walked by greeted him by name.

  Robert was an elderly (seventy-eight) black gentleman with a bad right eye, a few missing teeth, a hat that read “Jesus Saves,” and a small American flag attached to the back of his chair. He had a large paper cup on his lap, and he shook it every once in
a while to remind people that he was there. Right now, however, he was giving Belle everything she was demanding. She loved it, and so did he.

  “She’s so beautiful,” he said.

  “Well, I would have to agree,” I replied. “And she obviously loves you. Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”

  “Hi Bobby,” a woman said, dropping a few coins into his cup.

  “God bless you,” he called to her.

  “What kind of a dog is she?”

  “She’s a Brittany, a bird dog.”

  Someone else stuffed a dollar into the cup and said, “Have a good day.”

  “Thank you. God bless you,” said Robert.

  Back to Belle: “She’s beautiful.” She was standing on her hind legs with her front legs on his lap and her nose in his face, giving him a little kiss.

  I chatted with him a little, finding out that he lived over on Amsterdam Avenue. He tried to keep a regular schedule here, but it was obviously very dependent on the weather. He told me that he was an Army veteran and was tickled to find out that I was, too.

  He never stopped smiling. He threw out “God bless yous” and “Jesus loves yous” to everyone who looked at him, talked to him, patted him on the shoulder, or dropped something in his cup.

  That morning, Belle and I had a little something extra in our step as we headed down Fifth Avenue toward the office—just as we did every time we bumped into Robert on the street over the next few years.

  Before the 2008 Westminster show, Saks Fifth Avenue and Westminster partnered to build a display for several of the Saks windows in the store on 50th Street and Fifth Avenue. Saks dedicated some of its windows to our show, and we helped the store put a nice display together that was in place for a two-week span before, during, and after the show.