Special four-legged friends
Heart dogs: rays of hope even in dark hours
"Rosie" and her fellow dogs "Lilly" & "Abby" are good for sick, elderly and disabled people. The "Krone" accompanied the dogs of the heart on a visit to a nursing home. And the loyal, gentle four-legged friends lived up to their name.
Sabine Oberhauser from Traiskirchen got to know and love this work with dogs 13 years ago. Since 2019, she has been training so-called heart dogs and their people herself as an animal welfare-qualified dog trainer. She works with children and young people - in special schools, with the severely disabled - as well as in geriatric and palliative care wards.
Calming and strengthening
In the disabled sector, the animal is intended to calm, but also to strengthen and give self-confidence, while in geriatrics it is sometimes used to mobilize elderly people. "But our dogs also do a great job in end-of-life care," says Sabine Oberhauser: "They accompany their humans until the last day." Austria is a pioneer in this training. It is the only EU country to have a standardized state certification for teams.
Visiting the care home
There are currently 42 active Herzenshunde teams. Most of them come from Lower Austria and Vienna. Doris Karasek from Hornstein (Bgld.) works at the care and support center in Pottendorf in the district of Baden. The doctor has two dogs close to her heart - "Lilly" is a three-year-old Miniature Pinscher and "Abby" is a four-year-old Labrador. About twice a week, she takes one of the dogs with her to work.
Four-legged "therapists"
When she strolls through the corridors with "Lilly" or "Abby", most of the residents' faces light up. "You wouldn't believe the wonderful experiences we have just because the dog is with us," says Doris Karasek. She talks about an autistic woman who was afraid of everything. "When she saw 'Abby', she relaxed and even smiled," says the doctor.
The dogs are not forced to do anything
What is important to both Sabine Oberhauser and Doris Karasek is that no dog is forced to do anything. If it gets too much for them, they can always leave. "But that rarely happens," says Doris Karasek and places the three-kilo "Lilly" on an old lady's bed, whereupon her facial features immediately brighten. A resident with spastic paralysis becomes much calmer when he can feel "Abby", and a man who is barely able to move after a brain haemorrhage tries to name the dog treats in animal form and feed them to the dog.
Animals do not judge
And why does the work with the dogs work so well? "Because animals don't judge," explains Sabine Oberhauser: "They don't care at all whether the person has a physical or mental impairment. They approach the person openly." Another essential point with the Herzenshunden: Animal-assisted intervention only happens if everyone involved wants it to.
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