Alliance of Therapy Dogs Observer Judith Keim speaks to a Chaplinwood resident as her dog, Wylie vies for attention.

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — As the senior citizens of Milledgeville’s Chaplinwood nursing home settled in for their daily routines Friday, a group of unusual visitors arrived to help brighten the residents’ day.

Among groups of residents watching “The Price is Right” and numerous nurses hurrying to and from various tasks, local dog owners from the Alliance of Therapy Dogs took their companions through Chaplinwood’s halls, looking for anyone that looked to be in need of a visit. Between Patrick, Jolene, Scout and Wylie, the four dogs and their human handlers brought joy and a reprieve from the mundane to dozens of seniors and nurses alike. 

“This is probably my 10th or 11th year,” said Judith Keim, Wylie’s owner and a longtime AoTD member. “We try to schedule [a trip to Chaplinwood] once a month, and we just got done doing Georgia College finals week, for which we’ll do two days in the spring and two days in the fall. Every month we do the [Georgia War Veterans Home], here, The Fellowship Home, Savannah Court, the Oconee Center, and [Georgia Cancer Support]. We also do Midway Hills Academy, and at the end of this month we’ll be at Camp Good Grief, which is a three-day camp for children and teenagers who have lost a loved one in the year prior.”

For most of the past decade, Keim has taken her dogs to various homes, facilities and organizations to spread joy and unconditional love to those who need it most. Although keeping therapy dogs is now all but second nature for Keim, the local AoTD leader had not always considered sharing her pet.

“When my last dog, Cupid, was about a year old, I was walking him to go and visit a friend at [Georgia College],” recalled Keim. “My friend, Pat Hester, said ‘You know, you ought to make him a therapy dog’. I said ‘A what dog?’, and that’s how it began. We’ve been finding more people ever since, and … we’re actively looking for other people to get involved.”

As part of her role with the Alliance, which promotes therapy dog ownership across the country, Keim serves as an official AoTD tester/observer certifying dogs for approval from the national organization. One owner whose dog has passed the AoTD test is Laura Morris, who shared her motivation for offering her dog for therapeutic purposes.

“Sometimes you can see them sitting there almost despondent, but when we walk in, people smile, they sit up straighter, they’re more talkative. …,” said Morris on the effect her dog, Jolene can have on nursing home residents. “Sometimes they’ll talk to the dog more than they will the person and all of a sudden you see a kind of interest that wasn’t there when we talked in. Not everybody is that way — some people are out and about and visiting — but the ones that are more lonely tend to respond more to the dogs … It just brings everybody alive.”

In their efforts to bring joy to seniors, medical patients and children, Baldwin County’s AoTD-certified owners said they are always searching for more doggie-owner teams. Although dogs must be at least 1 years old and possess a gentle disposition to be registered with the AoTD, Kim said the certification process is actually relatively easy, and nearly any dog owner can gain certification for therapeutic purposes.

“One of the things I’ll try to do is run my hand all the way around the dog’s body until I hit their tail,” said Keim of her process of certifying dogs. “Most people don’t realize I’m doing it and think that I’m just petting the dog, but I need to make sure the dog doesn’t have a [hostile] reaction to me. If it does, we’ll then see if the reaction can be worked on.”

As the dogs and their owners stood outside Chaplinwood after their visit late Friday morning, one team that had seen plenty of action was Peggy Dunford and her dog, Patrick. Although Dunford’s main concern is the well-being of the people she shares Patrick with, she said the act of bringing her pet in public is beneficial to all involved.

“They give so much pleasure to all these people that are sick; they really do,” Dunford said. “It’s good not only for the patients but for the dogs and for me as well. I’ve worked hard all my life, and to be able to give back to the community, I feel that I’m lucky.”

The Alliance of Therapy Dogs is currently accepting applications for new dog-owner therapy teams. For more information or to register a dog as a certified therapy animal, call Judith Keim at 478-456-2713 or Pattie Alliston at 478-457-4935.