Willie the therapy dog spreads cheer each Tuesday
By Kyle LoJacono
Everybody at Florida Hospital Zephyrhills knows they will have a visitor on Tuesdays; he just happens to have a wet nose, fur and four legs.
Each Tuesday, Willie the therapy dog goes around the hospital to visit patients well enough to see him. People stop in the hallways to come and spend a few a minutes with the 9-year-old golden retriever and patients’ faces light up when he enters their room.
Jaimee Underwood, director of the intensive care unit (ICU) and progressive care unit (PCU) for the hospital, said she has seen a lot of benefits from Willie’s weekly visits.
“I think it’s very therapeutic for the patients,” Underwood said. “It adds in their healing. It puts the smile on the face of someone who is sick. The patients who have a long stay really look forward to Willie coming back each week. I think it definitely decreases the anxiety and it truly does help their healing.”
Underwood said they ask all the patients if they would like to visit with Willie before he shows up. He does not go into the emergency room or the ICU to protect the patient and Willie.
Willie is led each week by his owner Kay Hoffland of Ridge Manor, north of Dade City. She said Willie has been a therapy dog for almost a year, starting at the Hugh Embry Library in Dade City and then Heartland Rehabilitation Center in Brooksville.
“He had to go through six weeks of therapy dog training,” Hoffland said. “They learn to move forward, left, right and back up on command so they can move in a tight spot. They learn to ‘leave it’ on the floor. He had to learn to sit and stay with me walking away and him staying there.”
Willie also had to learn not to lick the patient for their comfort and to make sure no medication is transferred.
The pair get to the hospital, 7050 Gall Blvd. in Zephyrhills, at about 9:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and they stay until all the patients who have requested a visit can see them. That sometimes takes until 2 p.m.
“I don’t have the heart to leave if someone signed up and know he’s coming,” Hoffland said. “We see everybody. Sometimes I’m in a room for less than five minutes, but sometimes it’s much longer. I stay as long as they want to see him.”
Hoffland said she wanted to train Willie as a therapy dog in hospitals because of the care her father Richard Wilson received.
“My dad came to emergency care at the hospital in December with congestive heart failure,” Hoffland said. “He was in ICU and PCU for a long time and hospice told us to take him home and make him comfortable because they thought he wasn’t going to make it.”
The care Wilson got helped him pull through and he recently left on a trip out West.
“I said I had to give back somehow and one day I saw a big sign on the back of an SUV that said therapy dog,” Hoffland said. “I jotted the number down and said, I have to do this. It’s extremely rewarding and the patients love it. I hear all the time that the visit made their day. If I can give them a minute to forget about their trouble, then it’s worth it.”
Eleanor Childs of Zephyrhills was at the hospital on June 7 and received her first visit from Willie that day.
“I think it’s so great,” Childs said. “It relaxes people and gets their mind off of whatever is going on. It’s something they should have everywhere. There are a lot of people who don’t have anybody who can come visit them and this will brighten their day. People sure would enjoy this.”
For more information on the hospital, visit www.fhzeph.org or call (813) 788-0411.
