Greenbook: A Local Guide to Chesapeake Living -Issue 11 | Page 38

gb
FEATURE
Meet Beamer
More than just a loving companion, Beamer is
a therapy dog: a keeper of secrets, a pacifier to
troubled souls, a warm and furry friend when it
seems nothing will ever go right.
D
ominique had no intention of training Beamer or his
brother to be therapy dogs. She worked in the mar-
keting department for the Redskins and spent what-
ever freetime she had volunteering in her community. She
was busy and the puppies were just months old.
She remembers the exact moment when she realized Beam-
er had a true and special calling—his purpose. Dominique
worked with many children at a halfway house. She recalls
all of the children and her bonded except one little girl who
refused to speak or make eye contact. Determined to get
through, Dominique was inspired one day to bring Beamer
to play with the children. ”I thought to myself all children
love small animals. There is just something pure and loving
in them that children, equally pure and loving, sense and
respond to”. She set 10 week-old Beamer in the little girl’s lap.
“I told her ‘Sweetie, you can tell Beamer anything. He won’t
38
GREENBOOK | SUMMER 2017
interrupt, he won’t laugh at you and he won’t tell anyone your
secrets’. And I walked away.” As that little girl nestled up to
Beamer, the grief and terror held in through a lifetime of
abuse and molestation by her own father came out in whis-
pers to a puppy. Her life was forever changed because she
could finally confide in someone. Since then, Beamer and
Dominique have helped thousands of children across the re-
gion and even earned a flight to surprise the kids at St. Jude
in Memphis and deliver “pawtographed” copies of their chil-
dren’s books.
When she discovered Beamer’s potential to help heart-sick
and ill children, Dominique slowly began training him to
be comfortable in public places and unpredictable environ-
ments. This is easier than it sounds, she says, mostly be-
cause Beamer naturally wants to love on people. “Beamer
has a very gentle soul and he wants to do everything I ask of