As Sayler and Hannah walk down the halls of Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph, they greet doctors and patients with smiles and a wag of their tails.

Sayler is a Golden Retriever and Hannah is a black Havanese, a smaller dog who likes to be carried around by her handler and owner, Carol Porter.

Sayler’s handler, Dawn Younger, said she, Carol and Hannah have been making weekly visits to Mosaic since January after being certified through Pet Partners.

“We love it,” Younger said. “She knows when I get that vest out that this is where we’re going and she loves it.”

Both pets and their handlers can pass a course through Pet Partners to be certified to make visits. Younger said the training Sayler went through to be a therapy dog included a lot of repetition and basic obedience.

“Sit, down, they have to stay at the end of a long leash without you for a certain period of time,” Younger said. “They have to be comfortable around wheelchairs, patients that may not be able to walk well or shaky patients that may not pet them like a normal, healthy adult.”

As Sayler and Hannah make their rounds on the pediatric and oncology floors and make stops in the family surgery and Intensive Care Unit waiting rooms adults and children alike smile at the dogs, pet them and begin talking about missing their own pets.

“Especially the long-term people that are here,” Younger said. “Whether it’s visitors or patients themselves, it helps them to forget why they’re here, whether it’s someone is not doing well or an accident, it just takes them away from it, temporarily, and that’s what I enjoy.” 

Younger works the rest of the week in a medical office doing medical billing and said she wanted to get involved with pet therapy to spend more time with her dog. When Carol is not making visits with Hannah at Mosaic, she works as an insurance agent in St. Joseph. She said she and Hannah enjoy making people smile with their visits and one of her favorite memories so far was when they were leaving from a visit.

“There was a lady walking in and you could tell that she was not happy and Hannah ‘smiled’ at her and she stopped, reached over and petted her and smiled back and didn’t say a word but that smile on that lady just struck me as, that’s why we’re here.”

Anyone interested in learning more about Pet Partners can call the ambassador at Mosaic at (816) 271-8814 or click here.