FIGHT Against Cancer: Canine Care

Sawyer just seems to know who needs him the most when he visits cancer patients and their families at Providence Alaska Medical Center.

He seems to know when to linger at the feet of a patient sitting in a lounge-like chair receiving chemotherapy. He knows when to just sit patiently alongside a hospital bed allowing the patient in the bed to gently pat his head.

He knows not to lick back.

That’s a pretty tough lesson for a guy such as Sawyer to learn. After all, licking is his natural way of showing acceptance and affection.

But licks from a guy such as Sawyer are not welcome in the sterilized environment of a hospital.

Sawyer is a four and half year old yellow Labrador retriever.

“Labs do have a tendency to want to lick,” Teress Yeomans, his human companion and handler, said. “I taught him not to lick when he is at work. He’s been very obedient about that.”

Sawyer’s success as a therapy dog is due partly to Yeomans’ commitment to the work her canine companions do – she’s been active in the Pet Assisted Wellness Services program since 2008 – and the lessons he learned following in the footsteps of Tanner, another yellow lab whom Yeomans worked with.

Tanner died at age 11 a couple years ago. Before he passed, his gentle mannerism – which is still talked about by long-time staff at Providence – served as a lesson plan for Sawyer. Tanner was the first therapy dog allowed to visit patients at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage at the JBER (Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson) medical facility.

“Sawyer learned from the best,” Yeomans said. “He follows in some very big footsteps.”

Sawyer has been in the business of visiting cancer patients since puppyhood when he and Yeomans’ began to prepare for the stringent national testing that certifies a canine and human team to visit hospitals via Pet Partners – which is the nation’s largest registry of therapy animals.

Today Sawyer not only visits cancer patients at Providence, he visits patients of all types at Alaska Regional and brain trauma patients at JBER.

The student has now become the teacher as Sawyer models what he learned from Tanner for Tia, another yellow lab just starting out in the therapy animal gig. Tia is just twenty months old – still an energetic, wiggly pup in Labrador terms.

But Yeomans’ said she is a natural and is rapidly absorbing all the knowledge Sawyer has to teach her.

It is a lot.

Patient receptivity varies from day to day.

But for the most part – especially in the children’s cancer ward – Sawyer’s presence brings giggles and smiles.

“Oh, the smiles that the canines bring to the children,” Yeomans beams. “The canines really help to reduce their stress and anxiety level and just get to be happy children for a bit. I am also just amazed by the connections my canines make with patients in oncology. Sometimes it is just their gentle presence; that peaceful presence they bring while they are there.”

That peacefulness Yeomans’ refers to is how she got started working with canines as hospital therapy animals.

Her mother had reoccurring breast cancer. She went through numerous procedures, was a patient at the Mayo Clinic and when the cancer returned, she opted not to fight it again. She was back home in South Carolina with hospice support and Yeomans and Tanner went to visit.

“Every time I looked for him, there he was sitting right next to her bed,” Yeomans recalled with emotion. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘how cool is this? He wanted to be by her. He was sensitive to how she was feeling.”

After her mother died, Yeomans’ returned to Alaska an attended a dog show where she met Mary Troll, the founder of Pet Assisted Wellness Services at Providence.

Yeomans was hooked on the idea of her and Tanner becoming an approved team. Tanner passed the testing and the pair began visiting.

When Yeomans’ son was diagnosed with cancer, Tanner sat with him during his infusion sessions.

She and Sawyer do other pet therapy work that is a bit more behind the scenes than the visits to cancer patients. They are an official crisis response team – often called upon to comfort and support victims of natural disasters or crime incidents in which emotions run rampant but fire and police responders are far too busy with the work of handling the incident to be able to provide that extra but desperately necessary emotional attention victims need.

That work isn’t documented the way their work with cancer patients at Providence is. They are stars in a new television commercial promoting the work of Providence.

It’s a role Yeomans’ modestly talks about. She is glad that Sawyer is recognized for his work; she prefers to stay out of the limelight.

“I am there to advocate for the canine; to help the canine do the job,” she said.

She would much rather tell the story of how Tanner helped a young child whose parents was undergoing cancer treatment.

“Some of the interactions Tanner had with this little child were absolutely incredible,” she said. “This child was having a very difficult time processing the parent’s cancer – really would not open up to anyone about it. But there was a little tea set on the floor and Tanner was just sitting there with this little child letting this little child offer him tea and telling him about the parent having cancer and how the child felt about it. It was just touching.”

Learn more about the national Pet Partners program online at: www.petpartners.org.

Learn more about the Pet Assisted Wellness Services program at Providence Alaska Medical Center online at: www.alaska.providence.org/about-us/mission/paws.