Just as they were in Newtown, a group of golden retrievers that work as “comfort dogs” have been dispatched to Boston to help ease the pain of grief-stricken people in that town.
Five golden retrievers made their way around Boston Wednesday, visiting some of the 176 victims of Monday’s marathon attack. Maggie, Addie, Luther, Ruthie, and Isaiah are comfort dogs, dispatched to various communities in the aftermath of tragedies. They’re trained like service dogs, but focus on providing emotional support.
“The dogs work for about two to three hours at a time, and then we make sure to give them a break,” Lizzie Brose, a handler for the K-9 Parish Comfort Dogs, told BuzzFeed. “They really do absorb the feelings of the people around them.”
I adopted a golden a few weeks ago from a golden retriever rescue group — his name is Sazerac and his backstory is here — and can second all of this. He can sense whenever something is bothering me, and the result is usually this, those eyes and that face in my lap.
Dogs, man. They’re the best.
(Pic via Buzzfeed)