Many of you are aware that I have been volunteering with my dogs at CHLA for 13 years. Last October Bonner passed away after volunteering at CHLA for 10 years, joining Bruce and Bobbi over the rainbow bridge. I still have Gordon & Willow in the program, who volunteer weekly at CHLA. All five of my dogs have a combined total of 34 years volunteering at CHLA and in 2018 we logged 153 visits, well above the required 2 visits per month. We saw thousands of patients, family members and CHLA employees bringing smiles and helping with pain management and rehabilitation.

In honor of Bonner’s ten years of volunteering at CHLA I have set a goal to raise $19,000 for the CHLA Pet Therapy program, $100 for each of his 190 pounds. The dog therapy program is funded entirely on donations. Please consider supporting us. There is a link below to donate.

On April 11th, 2019 CHLA will celebrate a streak of having at least one therapy dog visit the hospital every day for the last 4 years. This is an amazing feat and all our volunteers, people and dogs alike, are determined to keep the streak going well past the four-year mark!!

There are currently 127 dogs and 132 humans in the program. In 2018, we welcomed 32 new teams, said goodbye to 22 teams, and renewed 39 teams here at CHLA. On average 1305 patients per month receive dog therapy visits at their bedside, dialysis or infusion centers and 62 physical therapy visits per month. Between interactions with patients, families, visitors, staff, and attendees at special events, our therapy dogs directly reached 89,196 people last year, that is 16,000 more visits than 2017!!!

Your donation will help cover the costs of evaluations, orientations, extensive personalized training, scheduling, special request honoring, special event participation, scarves, badges, collars and leashes for every dog, polo shirts and aprons for every human, trading cards for every dog, hand sanitizer, reimbursement towards annual vet exams and therapy team re-registration fees, and many other things essential to making it safe and rewarding to have a robust dog therapy program for the CHLA community.

Many thanks for your donation!! Dorothy, Willow, Gordon & all the CHLA dog therapy teams