Mary Fogle, a resident at Oakleaf Village of Lexington, Peter Buttress, and Chase, a certified therapy dog. Whenever I walk into an assisted living facility, I am always greeted with smiles. The residents aren’t welcoming me, however. They are smiling at Chase, my certified therapy dog.

Chase is a black and white border collie mix, about 4 ½–years–old. People love to touch his long soft hair, and when he puts out a paw to shake or rolls over on command, their faces light up with wide smiles.

“I love dogs,” said Mary Fogle, 88, who lives at Oakleaf Village of Lexington. “I’m always happy to see him.”

Fogle said her family always had collies when she was growing up and she has some very happy memories of having dogs around. “When I was a little girl, my mother would send me down the street to get something from the grocery store,” she recalled. “There would be one dog on each side of me. When we got to the store they would sit down at the door because they knew they couldn’t go in, and they would stay there until I came back out. Then we would walk back home as if they were protecting me.”

Chase ran away from his first home about three years ago. It didn’t take long before he was picked up, and, as he wasn’t wearing a collar or identification, he was taken to an animal shelter. He might have been euthanized because the shelter lacked the space to keep him there for very long, but fortunately Project Pet, a rescue organization, saved him. After he was neutered and had all his shots, my wife and I adopted him.

It was not love at first sight. During the first week Chase was very wary and would have little to do with us. It was as if he had been traumatized by being locked up in a cage. By the second week, though, he began to show evidence of his true personality. He started to trust us and gradually he became affectionate. Soon we were close buddies.

Earlier this year, a friend suggested Chase would make a wonderful therapy dog because he had an easy–going temperament and loved to be around people, especially children. I studied the Therapy Dogs International Inc. website, saw what was required, and began training him. In April he passed all 11 tests, and soon he was bringing smiles to nursing home residents, children in a children’s center, and at Irmo Library where children read books to him.

John Schelble, 62, is the owner of Annie, a white 4–year–old labradoodle who has been a certified therapy dog for almost a year. Schelble and Annie regularly go to the Lowman Home and to hospitals. One day they walked into a room at the Lowman Home and found a man sitting on a single bed in a dimly lit room. As Annie walked up to him, the man reached out and touched the dog’s shoulder. Then the dog licked his nose and the man chuckled. When the man bent his bald head forward and Annie licked it, he burst out laughing.

“It’s a classic example of how a dog in this setting can change someone’s temperament from absolute loneliness to laughter,” Schelble said.

Before Annie was certified, Schelble took her to a hospital to visit a man who was dying of pancreatic cancer. Annie walked into the room and put her head on the bed so all the patient had to do was put out his hand to pet her. After a while, Annie walked around the bed and stood next to the man’s wife who was feeling very sad. “The dog brought a measure of comfort in a very difficult situation and raised the mood of everyone,” Schelble said.

With a therapy dog, you can actually change a person’s life for a small amount of time, Schelble says. “For a brief moment, they are reminded of their youth. They are reminded of their former pets, or they are just reminded that someone cares about them,” he said.

To learn more about the requirements for your pet to become a certified therapy dog, go to: www.tdi– dog.org, www.therapydogs.com, or www.delta-society.org.