Graduation day for unwanted dogs

Imagine the unique challenge hospice workers face of enriching quality of life for those whose lives are tangibly nearing their end. Next, imagine an animal rescue whose goals include not just saving dogs' lives, but empowering them to thrive as contributing members of society. Now, imagine a creative partnership between two innovative organizations, joining forces to fulfill and evolve their respective missions.

From within this vision, a very special dog will be trained as a therapy dog for Hoffmann's state of the art hospice house, set to open its doors in the summer of 2015.

Hoffmann's new facility will be a breed apart, not only in that its infrastructure will emulate that of a house versus a hospital, but within its walls will reside the spirit of home. The idea is to allow patients and their families the opportunity to live, love and let go in as comfortable and familiar an environment as possible. In response to the question, what is a most treasured element of home that we can bring to the in-patient experience came the answer of a live-in, collective family pet.

While Hoffmann provides fundamental pain management and medical treatment, their bigger goal is to enrich the time patients have left, helping them to exist in the moment and fully experience the right of passage at hand. Dogs have a way of keeping people present, opening a safe, pressure-free space in which even the most painful emotions flow freely; then licking tears from cheeks when they inevitably begin to fall. While all animal lovers know this is true from a personal perspective, scientific evidence backs up the anecdotal. Studies prove that a dog's presence not only offers emotional support, but has the power to alter and improve a person's physiological state. In hospital settings, therapy dogs effectively decrease blood pressure and lower heart rate, offer distraction from pain and anxiety, diminish depressive symptoms, and increase production of feel-good chemicals like oxytocin, dopamine and seratonin. Not only will having a dog around impact patients and families, but staff and volunteers as well, who deal with the heavy weight of loss on a daily basis.

In order to fulfill their vision, Hoffmann Hospice has teamed up with Marley's Mutts Dog Rescue, whose crew pulls dogs from high-kill shelters, then rehabilitates and re-homes them. Via their outreach program, Miracle Mutts, Marley's Mutts then gives rescue dogs the opportunity to pay forward the gift of healing they've received by educating and inspiring their community.

"Expanding our Miracle Mutts program into a hospice setting has come at the perfect time in our evolution as an organization", said the program's director, Liz Kover, "Enabling this precious dog to fulfill her higher purpose as a healer will take our work as a rescue to a whole new level".

The chosen dog was announced on April 1. It was 4:30 a.m. when, on his routine commute to work through the dark, barren, Mojave landscape, Brian Jackson noticed the outline of two big, furry ears attached to a very small four-legged figure in his headlights. Amazingly, the dog ran to him without trepidation when he called to her, as if she had been waiting for him. Maggie, as she's known for now, is a twenty pound, three year-old papillion-sheltie mix with energy as gentle as it comes. "We considered several adoptable dogs as potential candidates, but it was always Maggie", says Kover, "Her almost-magical spirit suggests she may've fallen from Heaven right into our laps, specifically to fulfill this divine purpose.