Bentley, a 2-year-old Bernese Mountain Dog, has yielded remarkable results in his work with emotionally disturbed boys in St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s residential treatment program. With compassionate canine attention, Bentley has helped several boys open up and move toward healing.
The animal-assisted therapy program started last year with Bogey, a 9-year-old golden retriever, working with boys ages 7-11 in the Challenger unit. Bentley recently completed a multi-week session working with children in Endeavor, who are ages 11-14. His owner/handler, Cheryl Pabich, is a volunteer with Health Heelers, an animal-assisted therapy program run by Laura Hey.
In an initial session, Laura shared Bentley’s “resume” with the kids, including his “scariest experience.” The dog was born in Canada, so the experience entailed: “Leaving mom, dad, brothers and sisters, meeting new step-parents and flying on a plane in a small pet carrier. (I was only 7 weeks old!) When I got to my new home, I had three step-brothers that I needed to meet and get along with. I needed to respect that I came into their home.”
The boys, many of whom can relate to being uprooted and having to adjust to unfamiliar surroundings in a new home, then took turns being invited into Bentley’s “personal space” to share their own scariest experience or memory.
“You could have heard a pin drop,” therapist Kathleen Tompkins said. “The boys were incredibly respectful and really listened to each story.” Some of the stories had never been shared before, “even after months of work. … The boys seemed to realize how important the sharing was.”
“He’s very sensitive,” Cheryl said. “He will lick the boys’ heads and move to comfort them when they tell their stories.”
Later, two of the boys talked about being mean to another boy in the group and said they wanted to tell him they were sorry. Two other boys brought up the Bentley experience in their family-therapy sessions, Kathleen said, telling their parents they don’t feel so alone or like they were the only one after hearing the other boys’ traumatic stories.
“It is just so safe to tell their families about Bentley, show off his pictures, and talk about him,” Kathleen said.
At a subsequent session, the group talked about how we categorize dogs and people using first impressions and stereotypes (pit bulls are mean, etc.) At that session, one of the boys turned to all the others and told them how an absent boy does better when they treat him nicely and don’t pick on him. They talked about how the absent boy can act appropriately when one of the youth counselors is at his side at school, just as Bentley knows how to act in a group when his owner is at his side, but how he can be naughty when she is at work.
The first boy later told Kathleen he had decided to befriend the absent boy to try to help him calm down. The first boy sat beside the other boy in a group session on the unit, coached him to calm down, and managed to get him through an entire group – “something that rarely happens,” Kathleen said. Boy no. 1 has also started writing poems.
“This is the most upbeat he has sounded in weeks. I’m sold on this therapy dog,” Kathleen said.
