Angel on a Leash by David Frei Page B

has always been a great warrior for therapy dogs in general and Angel On A Leash in particular. Greer and her black Labs, Clayton and Fauna, were among the first teams to make therapy visits to the Family Assistance Center at Ground Zero (Pier 94) following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Greer has been very involved with New Alternatives for Children, a New York City agency that supports children with special needs, and before that, she was involved in hippotherapy (therapy horses) for kids participating in the Special Olympics.
    When Westminster approved the Angel On A Leash therapy dog program, I grabbed Greer immediately to be our director of programs, a job she has held ever since. Her late husband, Richard, was on our board for many years as well; we miss him dearly.
    I also had the good fortune to have three of the country’s top therapy dog experts—Christi Dudzik, Mary Ehrhart, and Dr. Stephanie LaFarge—say yes to me when I asked them to join the Angel board. My other current board members, Chuck Bessant, Ranny Green, and Tom Lasley, bring us a lot, too, and we are all working hard to get Angel On A Leash doing all of the things that we’d like it to do.

“ Give them a chance to talk and smile and laugh, and you might just make their day. They might make yours, too. ”
 

Therapy on the Street
    A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Pythagoras, or whatever geometric whiz came up with that one, never had a dog.
    When the weather was right, I would walk one of the dogs to my Westminster office, just a little less than 3 miles from my apartment, as the taxi travels. But, as the dog walks, it was certainly more than 3 miles. It’s a forty-five minute walk without a dog; with a dog, it’s at least an hour. That straight-line stuff applies only to a dog’s route to his food bowl.
    Belle would be at the door, ready to go. She seemed to sense when I was going to take her to work with me. I’m not sure if it had something to do with the weather or some vibe I was giving off, but she knew. I’m guessing that it was the vibe. After all, that’s what she was working from when she did her therapy dog thing, and she was so good at that.
    By now, Teigh was more into walking the couple of blocks over to Finnegan’s Wake for dinner on the sidewalk. He was slowing down in his life, so it was just Belle and me most of the time. A few times, I walked both of them to the office, but it was a lot of work walking two dogs that far. Often I would arrive at the office looking as if I had run those 3 miles, in need of a shower at the end of a workout.
    Add to all of this the fact that many New Yorkers don’t understand and appreciate, as we did, the importance of walking two dogs on the sidewalk in the city during rush hour. We tried it a couple of times, but eventually I took to heart the ever-so-polite suggestions of some of the locals that perhaps we should not be taking up so much space on their sidewalks. So it became “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” most of the time—just Belle and me.
    Belle actually had a nice history of coming to work with me, dating back to my days in Seattle. At the time, Cheri and Teigh were a registered therapy team, and they would be visiting somewhere a couple of days a week, working for Healing Paws. Belle would come to the office with me, as we were not yet a registered therapy team.
    I had an office on a marina on Lake Union that I rented from a yacht brokerage; it was the greatest office I ever had. My doors opened right onto the dock, and Belle had a great time chasing the geese off the dock, something much appreciated by the locals who lived there on their boats.
    Brittanys—at least my Brittanys—are not particularly big water dogs. Belle wouldn’t intentionally jump in, but I had to fish her out of the water a couple of times. The first time was when she decided that she was going to chase a duck and