My thing is working dogs, I love working dogs, and all of my dogs work in one way or another. I was only with Bud for a few hours when I knew he would make a great therapy dog.

He lacks Red’s poise and confidence – and experience –   but he has the qualities that make a good therapy dog, and possibly a great one: he is calm (he doesn’t jump up on people or claw at them) he loves to be petted and scratched around the ears, and he doesn’t mind crowds of people.

More than anything, the Mansion residents need an animal they can approach and hold and touch. That’s all they need, and Bud loves being touched.

Summer, the Mansion cat walked right by him, and he didn’t move. He was a bit taken aback – he really has spent little time in a house, let alone with a crowd of people, but he will get easier each time we go there.

They loved Bud, when the word spread through the Mansion that I had brought him (they have all been following the blog closely in the Activity Room to follow Bud’s progress) there was suddenly a line of people waiting to meet him, touch him, hug him.

He was patient and steady for all of it, I took him out after a half hour, I didn’t want to over do it. I am astounded by the degree to which this dog has already assimilated himself into our lives.

This morning, he went out again with the dogs and the sheep and the donkeys, and he had a blast tearing around trying to keep up with Red, which he could not do. I never expected his first appearance at the Mansion to go so smoothly.

I have to watch him closely – he does startle easily, an echo of something in his past – but he was very calm around the residents.

I want to work on socializing him with men.

What the residents most need is to touch and feel a dog, every one in the Mansion misses their pets deeply. Red does an enormous amount of good there, and with Bud, we can do twice as much good.

Within a few minutes, the line of residents was all the way down the hall. I promised to bring Bud tomorrow and I will try to go every day to get him comfortable with this kind of work, so important to me and my life.

This was a wonderful thing to see, and this will deepen my work and contribution to the residents there. I can hardly relate how much it means to them to have a dog they can love.

Bud is a monor miracle in some ways, he was definitely meant to be here. It is quite amazing to experience the twists and turns of life, and to learn how to be open to them. Bud is a new kind of experience to me, another thing that is opening me up..

If you wish to support my Mansion work, you can send a contribution to Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark the payment “The Mansion,” so the money goes where you wish it to go.