JJ knows just what to do to comfort her patients and her patients love her for it. In the viral video below, JJ, who is trained as a certified therapy dog, visits a woman in her bed at Samaritan Evergreen Hospice House in Albany, Oregon. The gentle Golden Retriever nudges the woman’s hand and licks it as a poem by Yeats plays in the background.
“This is a lady who has very few people to visit her. She cannot see and often does not wake up, but she did like having her hand on my fur,” JJ “wrote” on her Facebook page. “She was very calm during my visit…I was very insistent to have her touch me, more so than usual. We fell asleep later with her hand splayed on my head, both of us snoring (but no proof of that!) I sure can be silly at times, but I also know when to be quiet and present. Her caregivers were very appreciative when they saw this video.”
JJ cares for hospice patients along with her “boss lady”, registered nurse Tracy Calhoun. JJ helps keep patients calm or helps distract a person to decrease their agitation when they are given medications. To her many fans who were touched by the video, JJ wrote, “Apologies to those who got teary watching the video, it comes with the territory here sometimes.”
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