Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Service Animals topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Service and therapy dogs praised for boosting independence, easing stress in Pasadena
Summary
Speakers described how Mobility Dog trains service dogs to help people with disabilities with daily activities, how the Pasadena Police Department’s therapy team uses dogs to reduce officer stress, and how Huntington Hospital volunteers use pet therapy to comfort patients.
Janie Lynn Heinrich, founder and CEO of Mobility Dog in Pasadena, said Mobility Dog "advances functional independence for people with disabilities through education, service dogs, and empowerment," and described the practical daily tasks those dogs perform to help handlers live fuller lives.
Heinrich said a service dog team is a partnership: "Every team is different... They become an extension of you. You do not become an extension of them," and listed specific supports such as fetching medication, opening doors and counterbalancing a handler to assist walking. She added that each handler team "affects personally anywhere from 10 to 14 people" in the handler's support network.
The remarks underscored Mobility Dog’s focus on enabling mobility and participation in community life. "Functional independence to us is the freedom to live all of your life," Heinrich said, saying service dogs allow handlers to "go anywhere when you roll or walk out that door."
Retired Pasadena Police corporal Joe Allard, who introduced himself as part of the Pasadena Police Department's therapy dog team with his dog Charger, said he turned to therapy-dog work after retirement and noticed during the pandemic that Charger needed a social role. He described assessing a dog’s suitability through exercises such as "puppy playtime" to observe sociability and behavior around strangers and other animals.
Allard said the therapy visits target officers and dispatchers facing job-related stress. He asked rhetorically, "What would you think if I told you if you petted the dog, it would add five minutes on to your life?" and acknowledged that claim "isn't scientific," but linked brief interactions with dogs to reductions in stress and blood pressure.
A Huntington Hospital volunteer who identified themself as Pat described the hospital’s pet-therapy program and said the facility uses Pet Partners to evaluate both dogs and handlers. Pat recounted visiting a patient with a spinal cord injury and said the visit was emotional for both patient and volunteer: "It meant so much to me," the patient told the volunteer, and Pat said the dog was "there laying in bed with him."
Pat emphasized that pet therapy is non-pharmacological comfort: "There's no medication for this. It's all the animal doing all her work and giving comfort." The volunteer said the program offers meaningful emotional support to patients and is a way for volunteers to give back.
None of the remarks in the transcript recorded a formal decision, motion or vote; the speakers presented program descriptions, personal experiences and arguments for the value of service and therapy animals in Pasadena and in clinical and public-safety settings. The comments highlighted local efforts to support accessibility and to provide short-term emotional relief for first responders and patients.
