Originally published in Pet Partners Newsletter, Vol. 7, No. 3, 1997
by Liz Teal
You walk up to the podium and deliver what you hope to be a scintillating lecture on AAA and AAT to a group of unbelievers. Your canine partner is in a perfect down-stay by your side, a model of decorum and manners. Then your partner gets up, goes to the center of the stage – and pukes. No, she didn't upchuck or expel some bile, she didn't politely regurgitate, she barfed big time, center stage. Oops.
We speak at great length about the gifts our partners bestow, often punctuating what we're saying with "pets give unconditional love." But there is one we rarely mention – the gift of embarrassment!
"Gift!! How can you call it a gift?" you might think – "I wanted to crawl under a rock when Fido farted at the facility. If he vomited like that, I'd die!" The above story is true, and no, the handler didn't die, she became Vice President of Programs of Delta Society, Maureen Fredrickson (Editor's note: Maureen has since left Delta and started her own business). What is perhaps the most important part of this story happened immediately after: as Maureen checked to see if her animal teammate was OK, the rest of the group was galvanized into action. One went running for paper towels, one for water – suddenly the audience was concerned with the dog. "Is she all right?" "How can we help?" Maureen was able to use the incident to show how the presence of an animal can not only bring people together physically, but emotionally as well. It demonstrated how animals can "show us our best selves."
Sometimes our partners humble us! Once when working on personal grooming skills with a group of developmentally challenged adults, my partner showed me that not only could he embarrass me, I was quite capable of embarrassing myself! He was carrying his brush to each individual in the group. They would each take it, brush him, give him back the brush and he would return to my left side to be directed to the next participant. At the end, I would take the brush from him, say our good-byes and leave. Only this day when I went to take the brush from him, he wouldn't let go! I offered a treat for the brush, still he held on. I continued with our good-byes, figuring he could carry the brush out and thus we would save face in front of the facility director who was (of course) observing the session. Then, he broke his stay by my left side! He pulled me off-balance while he went to sit in front of a participant as the rest of the group said, "You forgot Henry." So while I was embarrassed by my "disobedient" dog, it was only momentary compared to the hurt that Henry could have felt and the embarrassment and guilt I would have felt had Henry been truly forgotten.
Ellen Shay says that she and her canine partner Pax have had so many embarrassing moments and near-misses that it has become part of the visiting style. Pax is a Labrador Retriever, and like most of his tribe, is inordinately fond of spherical objects. One day they were visiting in a new space, not the one they had previously seen, but the "upstairs gym" sounded fine. Imagine the looks of both handler and dog as they entered a room with a prominently placed pit filled with hundreds of brightly colored balls, and a child gleefully rolling around in them! Her well-behaved partner suddenly couldn't function, he simply couldn't focus. The first solution: have the child come out of the ball pit and have it covered up. But that wasn't enough. The answer: have the child throw balls for Pax to retrieve! Everyone wins, except perhaps for Ellen's nerves!
Sometimes our partners put us in other awkward moments, such as the time that Pax became physically overstimulated during a session with children. Now, Pax is jet black, so his bright pink erection was positively neon, as the kids asked "What's that? Is he OK?" Ellen said later, "I have no kids of my own. I never thought I was going to have any kind of birds and the bees talk!" She acted quickly, "Pax, DOWN". He lay down, and the Human Service professional took over. Now Ellen can pass this tip along to other handlers of male dogs: she puts Pax on a down-stay whenever she thinks he might get physically aroused.
Embarrassing situations are not, however, limited to those with canine partners. Ginny Cornett of Hope Therapy in Texas (a 1977 award recipient) tells of a participant who became quite distraught upon discovering tumors on the bunny in her lap. Gently Ginny explained that unlike the rabbit the participant had seen before, this was a male and they weren't tumors, but very healthy testicles. As everyone blushed, they also laughed, and you know laughter is considered by many to be the best medicine.
Occasionally our partners are merely catalysts for our own Foot in Mouth disease! Once Shari Sternberger was visiting an acute care setting with her English Setter, Gandalf. She was describing to a teenager all the grooming that her partner had undergone to come and visit saying, "just like you wash your hair to go out on a date," at which point the guy says, "Oh, I don't have to go through all that, I just pull it off" – as he removes a wig – "and toss it in the sink!" Gasp! Then the boy started to laugh, really laugh, then everyone in the room laughed!
So what could have been a devastating moment was actually a catalyst for some healing laughter for everyone there. So if you have ever felt embarrassed while on a visit, you are not only in good company, you have been part of what connects us to each other. Who knows, perhaps our partners know this far better than we do. My new partner, a cat named Pekoe, has yet to cause me to blush on a visit, but I'm looking forward to the time he does. I know that I will be a little more connected and a little more alive than I was before.
