Tiger HATS turns 20

Once a week, Gail and Roly Sherman make their rounds at Williamsburg Senior Living Community. While neither has a medical degree, the team has an innate ability to diagnose maladies and improve health and wellbeing of the staff and residents. In fact, the team is renown for practicing some of the best medicine around.

For example, last year, the blue heeler and her owner visited a stroke survivor at the rehabilitation unit of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center. Roly sat patiently at the bedside. Yet, while the woman was eager to pet the dog, the traumatic brain injury left her too weak to reach the dog or to talk with the visitors. Two weeks later, they visited the same patient. This time, the elderly lady had regained enough strength and dexterity to pet Roly, who rewarded the effort with a congratulatory lick in the face. “It was just worth everything to go there that day,” recalls Gail. “The excitement and the smile on her [the patient’s] face.”

Gail and Roly are one of 100 teams of dogs and their owners who volunteer with LSU Tiger Human Animal Therapy Service (HATS). Launched by LSU School of Veterinary Medicine Instructor Stephanie Johnson in 1991, Tiger HATS began as an opportunity for vet students to participate in animal assisted therapy program. Johnson made only three phone calls to offer the service before the demand for pet visits overwhelmed the vet student’s availability and volunteer teams were recruited from the community.

Twenty years later, the organization’s volunteer corps includes everything from pedigreed pups to pounds hounds and even a few cats. But not every mutt can make the cut.

“All of the dogs are evaluated to make sure they are appropriate for the program,” explains Program Director Diane Sylvester, who has screened the dogs and owners for seven years. “They must have a certain temperament—not every animal can be in the program. They have to be well-behaved, clean and evaluated with health clearances.”

The majority are large breed dogs simply because their temperaments are generally better suited for chaotic environments, variable noises and a parade of new people.

And, the owners must pass muster as well. “[Before volunteers go into a new setting], they are well trained to understand the procedures and protocols of each facility,” Sylvester says. Furthermore, about half the volunteers have received advanced animal handling certification through the national Delta Society pet partner program.

While similar programs across the country exclusively focus on nursing homes and hospitals, Tiger HATS has expanded to 17 sites including nursing homes, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, oncology units, libraries, a children’s halfway house and developmental center. Despite the fact these trained therapy dogs will go on 5,000 visits annually, the local requests from new venues still far exceeds capacity.

While they cannot fulfill every request, Johnson and Sylvester are gratified that the community has acknowledged, embraced and endorsed the importance of the human-animal connection for all segments of the population. “I enjoy bringing my animals to visit other people to make their lives better,” says Sylvester. “They [her dogs] make my life better, and I want to share that.”

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