Roo is a graduate of the Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS), which is celebrating its 35th year of breeding, raising and training fully certified assistance dogs
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If you’re upset, Roo will sense it and walk over to offer comfort.
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The six-year-old Labrador/golden retriever has been working at Peace Arch and Surrey Memorial hospitals since late 2021, helping victims of trauma.
“She knows when something’s up, you almost have to see it to believe it,” said Christine Simmons, an emergency department social worker with Fraser Health. “We’ve had experiences where she’s just lying there and somebody starts crying or someone is in some sort of turmoil, Roo will stand up, walk over and put her chin on the person’s lap.
“It’s quite remarkable.”
Roo is a graduate of the Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS), which is celebrating its 35th year of breeding, raising and training fully certified assistance dogs.
The dogs become service dogs (helping with mobility and PTSD), hearing dogs (alerting people to sounds), and accredited facility dogs (AFD), such as Roo.
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The AFD dogs work with experts in health and wellness, justice and education, including Roo at Fraser Health, Gaia at Canuck Place, the retired Caber in Delta (the first victim services facility dog in Canada) and successor Cougarand the VPD’s Lucca (victim services) and Zen (traumatized officers), and Cambria (victim services) in Surrey.
A dog named Koltanthe first to work full-time in a BC acute care facility (Surrey Memorial Hospital) helped out Emergency Health Services dispatchers before he died prematurely.
PADS relies on volunteers for about 90 per cent of its work, including puppy-raisers such as Meredith Areskoug. There are weekly classes with trainers, field trips and group meetings to go over their dogs’ skills. It costs the non-profit group at least $35,000 to train a dog, according to the society.
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A record 45 dogs graduated during COVID-19, despite having to move everything online.
“We just kept soldiering on, it was an amazing thing,” Areskoug said.
The society has campuses in Burnaby, Calgary and near Lake Country, as well as an advanced trainer on Vancouver Island, with 137 dogs in the program at the moment, 32 of them in advanced training (such as the training that Roo took).
Dogs who graduate must have the right temperament for the particular service they’ve been trained for. Roo, for instance, comes from PADS’ Australian litter and a long line of calm, supportive dogs.
“PADS is amazing and I could go on-and-on about their awesomeness and how supportive they’ve been,” said Simmons.
She has had Roo since 2018 and for the first two years before her health-care work the Lab/golden retriever was with a children’s advocacy group that helped young victims of sexual and physical abuse during forensic interviews and at court.
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Since she was allowed in hospitals in late 2021, sometimes a doctor or nurse will come up to Simmons to tell her about a patient just diagnosed with cancer, could Roo go visit? Simmons will do an assessment, get a patient’s or family’s consent and let Roo do her thing from her.
“I’ve always had a yes, never a no,” Simmons said.
Sometimes Roo just stands by the bed, sometimes she jumps onto the bed (again, with consent).
“Roo will just lie there and you know when you’re petting a dog, your blood pressure goes down, your breathing slows down, you’re calm because you’re doing this petting and talking and, well, Roo’s demeanour is just amazing as well.”
Roo isn’t a service dog. She doesn’t press buttons on the elevator, she doesn’t pick up dropped keys.
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“We joke that Roo’s too lazy to do that, she’s like, ‘I just want to be cute and helpful,’ ” Simmons said.
Simmons might joke about Roo’s work ethic, but it’s emotionally taxing and the dog is tired by the end of the day.
“It’s hard work,” Simmons said.
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