The Use of Therapy Animals in University Hospital Waiting Rooms

Anne told me you were looking for story ideas... University Hospital has started utilizing therapy dogs in its surgical waiting room to help comfort the families of patients in surgery. These animals are different from service dogs (those who help the blind and disabled) and are specially trained/conditioned to be extremely calm around people. The program is coordinated through Intermountain Therapy Animals (ITA), who train, test and coordinate the dogs and their owners. As far as I know, we are the only hospital in the state using dogs in the waiting room.