Connections - November 2008 - (Page 4) Passionate Calling A non-profit to help mankind Edited by Jasmine Grimm Sammy isn’t a typical Golden Retriever. He’s a therapy dog and the heart of Karen Gerth’s non-profit business. “Sammy has taught me lots of lessons,” said Gerth, the president and founder of KPETS, an organization established to promote animal assisted therapy. But three business lessons stick out in her mind: Suspend judgment, follow your heart and always be compassionate. Sammy taught Gerth the value of suspending judgment when, “A huge African American man with dreadlocks was at a hospital for occupational therapy,” said Gerth. “He must have been 6 ft. tall. He had a problem where he couldn’t walk or function well. I still get choked up when I think about this story.” Sammy was there to help with the man’s speech but when Gerth first saw the patient she thought the dog couldn’t help. She thought the man looked too gruff and too disinterested in the role of a therapy dog. “Sammy’s role is to respond to certain commands from patients at the hospital,” said Gerth. “One of his commands is ‘Sammy, sit.’ We had the man try and try to say ‘Sammy sit’.” The man struggled with the dog’s command. “We moved onto another exercise. This one required the man to say ‘One, two, Illustration©iStockphoto.com/Dale Taylor 4 | Connections | November 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapy_dog http://www.kpets.org/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5YqJ-k97Is
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.