February 5, 1998 Contact: Adrienne Outlaw (615) 322-2706 a.outlaw @vanderbilt.edu

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Vanderbilt students and community

find puppy play pays off

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Vanderbilt students are providing puppy and people love to facilities around Nashville through a program called Vanderbilt PET, or Pet Encounter Therapy.

Several times a week students borrow puppies from the Nashville Humane Association to visit people at needy facilities. This semester Vanderbilt PET volunteers are working with Vanderbilt Hospital, Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and Mariner Health Care and hope to soon add the Alive Hospice program. Last semester students visited Knowles Senior Citizen Activity Center, the Harris Hillman Special Education Center and Vanderbilt Hospital.

Individually matched to sites with which they feel most comfortable, students not only introduce puppies to people with special needs, they also communicate on a personal level. "When you're going through a hospital, you're bringing joy to people who are really suffering," said sophomore and Ingram Scholar Patrick Alexander, who organized Vanderbilt PET last semester with support of the community service-based scholarship program. "The puppy program sounds like a cute idea, but it can be awkward for people. You need volunteers who excel at being able to speak with people and get past situations that can be very sad."

A committed volunteer, Alexander worked last summer for the Nashville Humane Association and the Vanderbilt Hospital, where a man literally came to life after a puppy visit. "The man had a double lung transplant and was in a coma after surgery. When someone brought in a puppy and put it on his lap, the man started talking," said Alexander. "His wife, his doctors and the nurses were blown away."

Director of the Nashville Humane Association Lee Peterson has seen this effect time and time again and is delighted with the student volunteers. "Statistics show that people who have pets live longer," he said. "It's therapeutic for the patients and it gives the animals an opportunity to socialize."

According to the Nashville Humane Association's pet therapy program fact sheet, everyone involved in a program like this benefits, from the needy person to the volunteer to the animal. Patients must often give up their pets when they move into a facility. The social contact volunteers provide is integral, because family and friends may not be able to visit care facilities regularly. People who are not feeling well may find it easier to communicate with animals because they require less energy. The program is also rewarding to animals, which are not able to receive individual attention in a shelter.

During a hospital stay as a child, a bedside puppy visit helped speed Alexander's recovery. That experience, as well as fond memories of his childhood dog, Duke, is among reasons Alexander started the program at Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilt PET mission is "to enrich and comfort the lives of people who suffer from serious illness, old age or severe disabilities through therapeutic visits with behaved dogs."

"Part of the program is to get the students talking to the people they are serving," said Alexander. "When people play with puppies they let their guard down. As they relive their memories you hear crazy stories that are fun, so we all get to share and learn from each other."

Vanderbilt University is a private research university of approximately 5,900 undergraduates and 4,300 graduate and professional students. Founded in 1873, the University comprises 10 schools, a public policy institute, a distinguished medical center and The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center. Vanderbilt offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, education and human development, engineering and music and a full range of graduate and professional degrees.

-VU-

Vanderbilt University is a private research university of approximately 5,900 undergraduates and 4,300 graduate and professional students. Founded in 1873, the University comprises 10 schools, a public policy institute, a distinguished medical center and The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center. Vanderbilt offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, education and human development, engineering and music, and a full range of graduate and professional degrees.

For more news about Vanderbilt, visit the News and Public Affairs home page on the Internet at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/News.