Alpine had a wonderful first week! She did a great job cheering up all the patients. She played fetch for about an hour with a group of patients which made them all smile. Alpine is surprisingly good at sharing the ball with others. She rotated around the room ensuring all of the patients had a chance to play catch with her. She is still being requested by patients for individual sessions but she does not sit still for very long so the group sessions are better for her. One patient even said that her favorite part of treatment was Alpine!
The staff are loving her too. On Friday some of the secretaries requested visitation with her since their office was getting pretty lonely. She sat quietly in their office snoozing, chewing on her bone, and accepting pats on the head for about an hour. Today was a stressful day for many of the therapists and nurses so the staff took their turns with Alpine having mini "pet therapy" sessions after which they felt ready to go again.
Alpine did her first bedside visit today. We usually either play in the hallway with her or sit in a quiet room for 1:1 sessions but today I was walking past a patient room and was called in. We had one patient who couldn't get out of bed at the moment so Alpine enthusiastically practiced her "up" command and said hi to the patient (the patient got her a little too excited and she ended up all the way on the bed with her. The patient loved every minute of it and Alpine did pretty well.)
In general the program is going very smoothly. She is still a puppy and still learning but most of the time Alpine is a well behaved little puppy. Most people are amazed at how calm she is (when there isn't a tennis ball around). Hope we can start the HeartMath program with her soon!!
-Rachel & Alpine
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