April 2008 Visits

Visit on 26 April 2008- Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled (BHID)

Hi fellow volunteers,

This month visit was again held at the canteen as the auditorium is still under renovation. The afternoon temperature plus high humidity did not dampen the spirit of our volunteers and their furry therapy dogs in bringing cheers to the residents who always greeted us warmly We however had a wonderful time interacting with them. My heartfelt thanks to our regular PAT team - 11 volunteers with 10 therapy dogs were:

1. Malissa Tan with Holicks / Labrador and Mooji / Chihuahua
2. Pearly Cheong with Gabriel / Rough Collie
3. Joshua Koh with Samuel / Burnese Mountain Dog
4. Elaine Lui, mum Soo Fen and dad Tuck Yew with Polar / Samoyed
5. Patricia Koh with Brutus / English Bulldog
6. Rebecca Kwan with Cocoa / Maltese
7. Eunice Wang with Baileys / Shetland Sheepdog
8. Mabel Ho with Silky / Golden Retriever
9. Charlie Ho with Stallion / GSD

A warm welcome to Evelyn and Francis Yip who came to observe our PAT activities. They want to do PAT work with their dog, Cash / Corgi, hopefully, they can join us in action soon after Cash has taken the temperament assessment.

A young resident, I call her "beautiful girl" , she has not spoken a single word, never smile and always keep silence. My Golden Retriever, Silky, is her favourite therapy dog. After some encouragement, she threw the dumbbell for Silky to retrieve. She began laughing loudly and clapping hands when Silky retrieved the dumbbell back to her a couple of times. BHID staff and I were amazed that that just a few moments with Silky had opened up this resident in silence. The most rewarding part of PAT is seeing the residents enjoy our therapy dogs as much as we do.

Our achievements are:
Cognitive / Communication / Socialisation Therapy
- encourage residents to call and remember the names of the dogs.
- flash card play to develop mental abilities
- stimulate conversation

Motor / Physical / Sensory Therapy
- walking exercise with therapy dogs
- encourage residents to stroke and touch the dogs
- encouraging residents to throw dumbbell for therapy dog to retrieve

Please take note that our next visit is to AWWA Special School for Children on 2nd May. Please check out our website for the details.

Warmest regards
Charlie Ho

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Visit on 25 April 2008 - MINDSville

Hello everyone,

Yet another great visit to MINDSville and as usual, we were greeted with squeals of laughter and lots of smiley faces from patients and staff alike. It was great to see that the patients are now able to recognise us and our dogs and some of them are even playing favorites - asking for their special 'puppy'. Not an easy feat to achieve when we only see them for an hour once a month! This week, we continued to work with the residents to help them achieve specific therapeutic goals - socialisation by encouraging interaction between staff, volunteers and fellow patients, motor skills with walking and ball throwing exercises, verbal and memory challenges by asking the patients to name and recall names of the dogs and volunteers and life skills training such as using hairbrushes to brush the dogs. It was particularly encouraging to see that Jessie, the in-charge of the PAT program at MINDSville, working so hard to help us achieve our goals as pet therapists and it is always nice to hear positive reports from her, noting the improvement that she has noticed in her patients and her staff.

So a big thank you to you, Jessie, and to your staff who are always there to give us an extra hand,
and of course, a big thanks to my weekday troop.

1. Melinda Ann Michael with Cleo / Dachshund and Chewy / Catalan Sheepdog
2. Alicia Chue with Diva / Labrador Retriever
3. Constance Ong and husband with XiAn / Labradoodle
4. Charlie Ho with Silky / Golden Retriever and Stallion / GSD
5. Vincent Ho with Gigi / Beagle
6. Judy Blyth with Cara / Miniature Schnauzer
7. Monique Hsu with Lilo and Nani / Maltese
8. Paola Ng - my fantastic helper with Beatrice
9. Louiza Chan with Grace and Beatrice / Spoodles

and a special mention and congratulations to Judy and Cara in officially joining the TDS team and getting through their first PAT visit like pro!

The next Friday visit will be to AWWA on May 2nd - please check our website for further details,

Until next time,
Louiza, Grace and Beatrice

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Visit on 20 April 2008 - Ward 66A Institute of Mental Health (IMH)

Hi everyone

Many thanks to all the volunteers who made time for our friends at IMH on Sunday 20 April. We were glad to welcome more dogs than usual, with Melinda with Cleo (our weekday volunteers) making a special effort to bring cheer and Corinne with Flapper joining us for the first time at IMH, not to mention our most faithful volunteers who continue to turn up month after month to renew their friendship with the IMH patients.

As it was such a pleasant afternoon, we brought 4 of the patients for a walk in the beautiful surroundings of IMH. Along the way, we had wonderful interaction with the patients, and Flapper, like a seasoned volunteer, brought laughter and cheer with his antics. Everyone certainly felt refreshed and invigorated by the walk. Many thanks also to Nurse Shankri for accompanying us.

The other volunteers stayed on in the Ward to interact with the patients, provide doggie entertainment and "lap comfort". For the record, we had the following volunteers:

1. Tricia Tan with Freo/Silky Terrier
2. Rebecca Kwan with Cocoa/Maltese
3. Doris Boo with Bambi/Silky Terrier
4. Charlie Ho with Stallion/German Shepherd
5. Mabel Ho with Silky/Golden Retriever
6. Corrinne Choo with Flapper/Labrador
7. Melinda Ann Michael with Cleo/Daschund
8. Eunice Wang with Baileys/Shetland Sheepdog
9. Elaine Lui, sis Emily and Mum Soo Fen with Polar/Samoyed

Through this session, we achieved the following:

Cognitive / Communication / Socialisation Therapy
- encourage patients to remember the names of the dogs, talk about themselves and the past week
- provide stimulation, conversation and companionship

Motor / Physical / Sensory Therapy
- encourage therapy exercise by walking with the dog, throwing ball/dumbbell
- helping the residents who are depressed and lonely to respond more subtly to the unconditional love that our therapy dogs offer.

We hope to see you all at our upcoming visits. We need YOUR support to make a difference to the patients / residents. Please check the website www.tdspore.org for details.

Cheers
Soo Fen

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Visit on 18 April 2008 - Sunshine Welfare Action Mission Home (SWAMI)

Hello fellow volunteers,

I am pleased to report that we had another fulfilling afternoon at the dementia ward of SWAMI Home. It is particularly encouraging to see an increasing number of regular weekday volunteers. Whilst Beatrice and I spent the hour with Uncle Robert, watching him patting and stoking the dog with much enthusiasm, forgetting about his pain and falling asleep with a smile on his face, my fellow volunteers were working their charms with the rest of the residents - be it the residents overcoming their fears of dogs and started to show an interest in them, or patting and cradling the smaller dogs, to the much looked forward walking exercises and the joys and laughter the dogs create whilst fetching their toys and doing tricks, all in all, I'm sure the volunteers there would agree with me that we had a wonderful afternoon at SWAMI, bringing a smile to everyone's faces.

Thank you to all the volunteers that were present

1. Melinda Ann Michael with Cleo / Dachshund and Chewy / Catalan Sheepdog
2. Alicia Chue with Diva / Labrador Retriever
3. Constance Ong and husband with XiAn / Labradoodle
4. Charlie Ho with Silky / Golden Retriever and Stallion / GSD
5. Vincent Ho with Gigi / Beagle
6. Paola Ng
7. Judy Blyth
8. Louiza Chan with Grace and Beatrice / Spoodles
   
   

and a special welcome to Judy, who came along as an observer today, and hoping to join us next week with Cara, her miniature schnauzer, as a regular Friday volunteer.

Last but not least, thanks to Mercy and the rest of the staff for always welcoming us with their lovely smiles and extra hands to help. You guys make our job so much easier.

Till next time,
Louiza, Grace and Beatrice

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Hi fellow volunteers,

We had a good turn out of 10 volunteers, 3 young volunteers and 11 therapy dogs who came with great enthusiasm.

Presents were:

1. Sabine Schex with Stella / Australian Shepherd
2. Melinda Ann Michael and son with Cleo / Datshund and Chewy / Catalan Sheepdog
3. Alicia Chue with Davi / Labrador Retriever
4. Constance Ong with Xian / Mix Spoodle
5. Louiza Chan and friend Eileen with Grace and Beatrice / Spoodle
6. Monique Hue with Grand-ma, son Malcolm , daughter Marian with Lino and Nani / Maltese
7. Poala Ng - Helping Hand
8. Charlie Ho with Silky / Golden Retriever and Stallion / GSD

My heartfelt thanks to all of you for your valuable time and effort to help cheer the ever welcoming aunties and uncles. Some of the therapy dogs performed special tricks and playing ball to entertain the delighted senior citizens.

To-day, PAT session achievements are:

Cognitive/Communication /Socialisation Therapy:
-- encouraging the residents to talk about their good old happy days. Through conversation, elderly residents maintain mental agility
-- testing some of the residents' memory skills by asking them to recall the name of our therapy dogs

Motor/Physical/Sensory Therapy:
-- encouraging the residents to throw dumbbell, ball, for our dogs to retrieve - this is a form of physiotherapy
-- motivating and assisting the residents to move their hands to pat and stroke the dogs
-- getting the residents to feed treat to the dogs;
-- encouraging residents to shake paws with the dogs


Please check out our website for the details of the next visit.

Warmest regards
Charlie Ho
 

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Visit on 4 April 2008 - Asian Women's Welfare Association Special School for Children (AWWA)

Dear Volunteers

Our Therapy dogs were greeted with joyful squeals, laughter and smiles of the anxious children from AWWA. The children couldn't wait to pat, touch, carry and walk the dogs. The children really looked forward to seeing our dogs and hated saying goodbye at the end of the session.

They children love to throw the dumbells and balls for the dogs to pick up. They get very excited to see the dogs fetch the items.Beatrice,Stallion,Diva and Chewy surely had a run for their treats today!! The doggies were pooped by the end of the the Therapy session! :-)

Today we were joined by three new dogs and their handlers. The dogs did very well, especially the little daschies who  were an instant hit with the little kids. With the perfectly behaved three new commers, we managed to get more children to come around to play and walk the dogs

A huge thank you to all the wonderful volunteers who were present today-

1. Charlie Ho with Silky / Golden Retriever & Stallion / GSD
2. Vincent Ho with Gigi / Beagle
3. Melinda Ann Michael & Shane with Chewy / Catalan Sheepdog & Cleo / Dachshund
4. Alicia Chue with Diva / Labrador Retriever
5. Sabine Schex with Stella / Australian Shepherd
6. Louiza Chan with Grace / Spoodle & Beatrice / Spoodle
7. Constance & companion with See Han/Labradoodle
8.Yvonne & gang with Enormous and Milo/Min Dacshund

Our achievements for today is:

Cognitive / Communication / Socialisation Therapy
- encourage children to call and remember the names of the dogs.
- asked the children to give sit commands and call the dogs to go for walks
- stimulate conversation

Motor / Physical / Sensory Therapy
- walking exercise with therapy dogs
- encourage children to stroke and touch the dogs
- Throwing balls and dumbells

As usual the children and dogs had plenty of fun and exercise. It's always a great way to end the the weekday!!

Please take note that our next visit is to SWAMI Home. Please check out our website for the details.

Have a great weekend :D
Melinda
 

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