Red and Fate are two very different dogs, in life and in therapy work.  Red showed me how to do this work well, I will have to do some teaching and training of Fate.

But what a great start she had today. I frankly wasn’t sure.

Red was always the same. Nothing rattled him, he showed little emotion, he had a genius for sensing who needed help and who didn’t, and how much help was being asked for.

I always joked that he was the Dean Martin of dogs, cool and steady.

He never got too excited, was not rattled by any noise, dog, cat or other surprise.

He presented himself to people, and they touched and petted him. I never had any sense of what he  felt, only what he did. I never worried about him, I never knew him to make a mistake.

I trusted him without reservation, he was the kind of quiet dog that people reached out to, to pet him and touch him.

In this work at the Mansion and his other work, he was deadly serious and focused, I learned so much just from watching him work, and seeing how he used his amazing instincts and intuition.

Fate is a very different kind of dog. She is more emotional, more outgoing, impulsive, distractible, wary of other dogs.

Her blue eye gives her a charismatic quality that people notice and love.

She is not nearly as reserved as Red, if she’s excited, she sometimes jumps on people, and she is curious, she wants to know what every sound and movement is about. Red was professional, Fate is enthusiastic.

Her love was returned, I noticed.

Because she shows so much love and enthusiasm, she draws more emotional responses than Red did. People want to hug her and touch noses, and she is more than happy to oblige. Red didn’t do that.

Red was affectionate, but not cuddly. Fate is cuddly.

The aides and the residents were laughing with her, talking to her, they were all much more animated than they were with Red. They loved Fate’s blue eye and  her sweetness.

This is a blessing and a curse. I see the residents take their cues from the dog: Red was always quiet and subdued, Fate almost never is.

I have to do a substantial amount of training with Fate, I had to do little with Red.

I need to make 100 per cent certain that she doesn’t jump on people, at the Mansion, that can cause serious injury and falling.  If she jumps on people, I’ll stop her therapy work immediately. So far so good. She only did it once, and didn’t get far or go far.

I liked the fact that Georgina used her as a footstool (above) and she didn’t blink.

I also need to reinforce to Fate what the work is.

I need to label it work, and get excited about going to the Mansion so she picks that up. While we are there, I will teach her to follow my hands, if I want her to go see someone, I point to them. I use hand signals, which she knows, to get her to lie down or come to me.

I need to show her how to be still for longer than five minutes. Much of this will come naturally, this was her first day at the Mansion, it was quite strange and confusing to her.

As she gets used to the people and the place, she will settle a bit, be open to direction, she will be calmer.

On balance, this was a wonderful first effort for Fate. Hubris is the danger here, I have a lot of work to do with her before I will fully trust her. But she has the heart and soul of a therapy dog. She loves people and loves to serve them.

A good therapy dog is not defined by the things they can be trained to do, rather the things they cannot be trained to do – showing emotion and empathy.

This may well be the work that Fate was meant to do. Thanks for coming along on this trip, I see that I have misjudged and misread Fate, I never expected her to be this far along on the first day.

The most important qualities in a therapy dog working close in hospice or extreme elder care is steadiness, affection and common sense. People are in pain, are off balance, are often afraid or depressed.

The more I work with Fate, the better she’ll do. I was much impressed for her, as guilty as I felt about leaving Red at home.

Dogs teach me so much, I am grateful for the chance to learn.

(Also, thanks for your support of the Bishop Maginn High School Wish List, the school now has all 22 of the microscopes they want and needed. We have about ten laptops to go by September, and there is one laptop on the list. I have the feeling it will go tomorrow. We’ll put up another list for the remaining laptops that are needed, it is either eight or nine).