They took Thanksgiving and turned it into a discount shopping festival, and they’ve  taken the presidency and turned it into a political kind of Super Bowl. I needed to get away from the anger and the fear, so Red and I went to an assisted care facility nearby to do our therapy work, there is nothing more cleansing, healing or affirming.

Lots of people tell me their dogs would make great therapy dogs, and maybe that is so, but it takes very precise training and a very special dog to do what Red does, I have a never had as natural a therapy dog as Red. He was born to do this work.

We knocked on Connie’s door and asked if she wanted to see Red – we have seen her every week these past few weeks – and she said “yes!” loudly through the door, she was asleep in her chair, an oxygen air pump attached to her nostrils so she can breathe easily.

Red wove  his way through the walker and tubes and pipes and put his head forward, Connie grabbed it in her hands and repeated again and again, “what a good boy,” what a beautiful boy.

People ask me again and again how you train a therapy don’t, and in a sense, you can’t. I reinforce Red when he looks at a patient, and show him that the people are the work, and he takes it pretty much from there. My commands are “go up,” which is go to the patient, “stay there,” which means don’t move, and “get close,” a sign for him to press against the person we are visiting.

I discourage people from talking to me, as I need to pay attention to Red, he gets many cues from me, my commands, hands and eyes. I am always looking at the person, he follows my gaze. If he looks at me, which he sometimes does, I look away and am silent. I might frown or shake my head.

This kind of work – and especially hospice and dementia work – can be so unpredictable. People can trip over tubes and wires, fall out of chairs, shout out in pain or confusion. We’ve had cats pop up from under beds shrieking, an oxygen tank blow open with a huge bang (this was several years ago), an elderly man confuse my dog with a squirrel and try to beat him over the head. People make sudden movements, strange sounds.

My rule is zero mistakes. So far, I’ve never been involved in one, I mean to keep it that way. The last thing these people need is to be frightened or harmed by a dog. Connie is now very much attached to Red, we know her schedule, bring her books, sometimes flowers, talk to her when she can.

I could feel the tension and confusion in the country, it was in the air, and so Red and I had the sweetest couple of hours imaginable, creating good and simple people at the edge of life who were so happy to see us. Perspective is a great healer.