Greenbook: A Local Guide to Chesapeake Living -Issue 11 | Page 39

“...BEAMER IS A GREAT PET, BUT WHEN I PUT HIS VEST
ON, HE IMMEDIATELY SHIFTS INTO WORK MODE."
him. He trusts that I will be there for him and he will be OK.
Beamer is a great pet, but when I put his vest on, he imme-
diately shifts into work mode—a natural born therapy dog.”
When he was old enough, Beamer joined Dominique in a for-
mal training program, ongoing to this day, to be nationally
certified as a pet therapy team. “Beamer and I are around
all kinds of people in our work. We are with children as they
take their last breaths, with kids as they help their parents
learn to walk again or battle through treatment at Wal-
ter Reed. We spend time with siblings of children fighting
cancer and patients hooked up to all sorts of machines. We
help children across the Autism Spectrum and inner-city
kids who just want to learn how to read. Our training was to
make sure that we both know how to manage patient privacy,
to interact with people in medical and otherwise sensitive
situations, and to be able to handle stressful interactions in
hospital environments”, Dominique said.
Shortly after discovering Beamer’s special calling, Domi-
nique registered Paws2Care, a non-profit organization that
aims to provide comfort, care and hope to children and their
families facing challenging times—to Paws2Care daily for
others. Through Paws2Care, she has organized a kid’s prom
night where kids dressed as super heroes and princesses
and cancer, deployment and special needs did not exist for
a night. She holds an annual 5k fun run/1k dog walk fun-
draiser and puts on a local reading program called “Tales
with Tails”.
Since moving to Annapolis, Dominique hopes to continue
similar efforts in her new community. “We want to brighten
days, it’s really as simple as that. We help families find the
right dog. We help children new to having a pet learn how to
care for them and be respectful. We make house calls with
hospice or for people with special needs. We want to help
create connections between dogs and people in need of a
little extra comfort.
Dominique says anyone can get their pet involved in com-
munity action as long as the pet is steady, calm and good-
natured around older folks and children. The dog handler
also has to genuinely enjoy helping people and depending
on the setting, have full control of emotions. Her advice is to
bring your pet to visit an elderly neighbor and just sit with
him/her. Walk your dog around your neighborhood and let
people pet it. Bring your pet to visit a sick friend or even just
someone having a rough day. “Dogs are great at making
people feel loved and petting a dog has been proven to lower
blood pressure—that requires no certification! It can be that
simple. Try to Paws2Care for someone today,” she ended.
The Paws2Care website has information about training.
Visit paws2care.org/resources.php.
GREENBOOK | SUMMER 2017
39