Every other Friday, Damascus resident Julie Burk and her 2-year-old Akita, Zipporah, can be found at the student center at Oregon Health & Science University.
Zipporah, who resembles a dog-like teddy bear, patiently allows students and staff members to pet her, play with her and even brush her teeth.
?She definitely brings a calming attitude in here,? says Beau Fischer, an OHSU pool operator and laborer 2 who looks forward to his Friday ?fix? with Zipporah.
She and Burk are a registered Pet Partners team, but Zipporah is also a crisis response dog - what Burk likes to call an ?extreme therapy dog.?
They volunteer with Eugene-based National Animal Assisted Crisis Response, a nonprofit organization that responds to natural disasters, campus shootings and other crisis situations.
Burk, a certified veterinary technician who also serves on the NAACR board, first learned about the benefits of therapy work while studying exotic animals in college.
She recalls taking a blue and gold macaw into a care center, and a man who hadn?t spoken or communicated in six months burst out laughing. After that, Burk was hooked.
What is crisis response?
Several of the horrific events over the past two decades made it clear that the therapy dogs and their handlers responding to help in those situations weren?t fully equipped, says NAACR president Connie Jantzen.
Both humans and canines who provided comfort to survivors of the 9/11 attacks, the Thurston High School shooting and the Oklahoma City bombing showed signs of post-traumatic stress, such as over-sleeping, over-eating and self-medicating.
?The recognition that we needed to prepare these teams for the environment ? both the physical and the emotional environment ? became obvious at that point,? Jantzen says.
Eugene resident Cindy Ehlers discovered this firsthand after she and her dog responded to the Thurston shooting, so she founded HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response, and then NAACR, to provide more specialized training.
While dogs in both crisis response and standard animal-assisted therapy dogs essentially provide the same service ? fostering a sense of comfort and safety ? the biggest difference is the environment in which they work.
Therapy dogs and their handlers usually arrive on a regular schedule to climate-controlled buildings, and the people they comfort are usually dealing with a routine range of emotions.
?With crisis response work, there?s nothing normal,? Jantzen says. ?You don?t know when you?re going, the dog is working in unfamiliar surroundings and the surroundings may be damaged.?
What?s more, the people they?ve come to comfort may be experiencing intense emotions following a disaster or crisis situation. Survivors or victims may react in a variety of ways, ranging from withdrawing from friends or becoming argumentative and loud.
?The dogs have to be able to understand those intense emotions and bring them back to a feeling of calm,? Jantzen says.
Crisis response training
To be eligible for crisis response work, dogs must already be a registered therapy dog, Burk says.
Training to become a crisis response team involves a slew of courses on CPR and emotional first-aid, self-care techniques and ongoing training sessions.
To get certified, Burk and Zipporah went through an intensive three-day course that involved exposing the dogs to a variety of stimuli: for instance, meeting with firefighters to familiarize them to fire gear and the sounds of a diesel engine.
They went to the airport, where Zipporah passed through a metal detector, rode in an elevator, and boarded a plane.
The training also included a Red Cross-type shelter simulation with people of all ages, from crying toddlers to elderly people with walkers.
The goal was to see how well the dogs respond to new stimuli, while handlers were evaluated on how they address new situations with their dogs.
Teams also conduct ongoing trainings with local emergency response agencies.
Zipporah was certified in crisis response in September and is currently qualified to respond to a local disaster (within driving distance). Once she does a local response, she?s eligible to respond to a national situation.
Burk?s group provides similar work to that provided by the Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dogs, which responded to the Newtown massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing.
The main difference is that the National Animal Assisted Crisis Response teams follow FEMA?s Incident Command System, a standardized system that establishes specific protocol for procedures and communications.
They must be invited by an agency before they respond. (Burk had hoped to respond to the Clackamas Town Center shooting in December but was unable to secure a formal invite).
Jantzen emphasizes that situations don?t need to be disasters or crises in order for the dogs to respond. They?ll work with autistic children, at-risk families or crime victims.
The dogs are sometimes able to connect with people in a way that other humans cannot; when someone is traumatized, they may shut down and withdraw from the world.
?It really breaks through the isolation someone might have built around themselves,? she says. ?When you can help a person to restore those relationships, they?re on the road to recovery.?
Burk has seen first-hand just how effective the dogs can be. Her previous crisis response dog, Zadok, went to Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University to comfort those affected by the campus shootings.
The students would approach them as they cruised around campus or attended basketball games, where lots of students gathered. They were free to pet Zadok, cry or just talk.
While each has its own style, both dogs have a knack for nosing out people who need help the most.
?I do therapy work because I love it,? Burk says, ?and I see the difference the dogs make.?
How to get involved: To become a dog and handler team with National Animal Assisted Crisis Response, you should already have a certified therapy dog and be comfortable working together as a team.
If you?re interested in joining National Animal Assisted Crisis Response, you can e-mail Julie Burk at akitaboy01@comcast.net or contact the national chapter at nationalaacr@gmail.com.
Even if you don?t have a dog, you can still help. The National Animal Assisted Crisis Response is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization, and handlers pay for all traveling expenses out of pocket. You can donate online at nationalaacr.org.
Find more pet news by following Pet Talk on?Facebook?and?Twitter.
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/pets/index.ssf/2013/05/pet_talk_crisis_response_dogs.html
nicki minaj beez in the trap video food network f/a 18 f 18 crash virginia tenebrae the lake house petrino arkansas
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন