She did it!

I can't be happier right now. We met our Therapy Dog director at the hospital today to do Sagira's first visit. She looked so cute with her new Coach collar, her new Therapy Dog bandanna on. She did great for her first time. She did bark a few times but once she was there and moving around she did fabulous. She did a perfect job on the elevator for the first time. I didn't get her enough credit. She CAN do this and is going to be great at it. She acted like this was what she was meant to do.

Our first room was wonderful. Two elderly ladies sharing a room. I walked in first and told them we had our therapy dog today and asked if they would like a visit. The smile on their face was priceless. She was like "oh yes". So we entered our first patients room with Sagira and she went right up to the bed and let the lady pet her. It was so cute. The other lady then pulled back the divider and asked to see her as well. This was just so touching to us.

Angie told us that Sagira did a great job today and she didn't see any areas of concern. We get to do the next visit by ourselves.

The pictures are of Sagira with us before we went to the hospital. Due to TDI guidelines we will not be able to share any pictures from the hospital visit itself.

Sagira's First Hospital Visit

So...today is the day I have been waiting for. Sagira will be doing her first therapy dog visit at the Hospital. This has been in the works for just shy of a year now. We adopted Sagira in February of 2008. We put her in training March of 2008. She passed her Canine Good Citizen exam in October. Her Therapy dog test in November. After going through orientations at the hospital, waiting on her paperwork and insurance to come back from the Therapy dog group we are FINALLY ready to take her to visit some patients. I am so proud of her. I am also extremely nervous. She is going to be so scared the first few times and I am afraid she is going to bark. She has started doing this when she gets scared. We have just spent so much time (and money) trying to get her ready for this day I don't want them to say your dog is bad please don't bring her back or she needs more training. I don't know what else I could have done with her. We took her to two NEW places every week for the first three months after we adopted her. She goes places with us at least two times a week, we take her up to people in wheelchairs while we are out. I can honestly say I have done everything that I know how to do to try to keep her social and ready for this day. I just hope it goes well.

Just got done ordering Sagira's therapy dog vest. I can't wait for it to arrive.
Also talked to Angie last night and we have moved Sagira's first hospital visit date up to THIS Saturday (31st).

I am really nervous, there is so much to remember and I am also nervous about how she is doing to react. She have never been in a hospital setting before or around that much equipment.

We scheduled her first visit for a 1/2 an hour instead of the normal hour to just see how she handles it and to ease her into all of this.

We are really looking forward to sharing Sagira with people. She brings us so much joy and I know if given time to adjust she will do great in the hospitals, but I think the first few visits she is going to be really nervous.

We completed our therapy dog orientation today at the hospital. Sagira is set to do her first hospital visit on February 6th. We are very anxious to see how she does.
We finally received her license from TDI as well as her bandanna. She looks very cute even though the bandanna is bigger than she is. Once we see if this is going to really work out for her we are going to invest in a nice therapy dog vest for her to wear around.

We took her to the mall today to get her used to wearning her dog boots. I don't want her paws exposed to all the stuff on the hospital floors, so we have decided to make her wear boots while doing her visits.

We have been working towards this for so long. I am anxious for the day to finally come around to see how she does with real patients.

January 17th

Sagira's therapy dog pack came in the mail this past week. She received her own little ID card with her picture on it and our names as her handlers. She also received a bandanna with the TDI symbol on it as well as a bright yellow tag for her collar that says "I AM A THERAPY DOG". I was so excited to finally get this. They sent a member guide that we have to read through and we also have to watch a DVD to learn the way we are supposed to conduct visits.

We are going to Doctor's Hospital today to go through volunteer orientation. Next Saturday we have to go through Therapy Dog Orientation and then we should be all set after that.

We plan to take Sagira to a few nursing homes before we attempt the hospital visits since the hospitals have more machines and noises, I think the nursing home will be less stressful for her at first.

The rescue group that we adopted Sagira from is doing an adoption event today. We plan to take Sagira with her donation vest to try to help get some donations for the group.

I will post pictures as soon as my computer is fixed (hopefully Monday).