A comfort dog meets with children in Newtown, Conn.
Courtesy K-9 Parish Comfort Dogs
Five specially trained golden retrievers and eight handlers arrived on Saturday to comfort those touched by tragedy, Vida Johnston, director of operations for Lutheran Church Charities's K-9 Comfort Dogs of Addison, Ill., tells PEOPLE.
Since then, they've been on the ground wherever the community needs them – comforting children and adults with cuddles and nuzzles.
"A parent will say, 'Thank you so much, I saw my child smile – and they haven't smiled for days,' " Johnston says. "The kids are telling the dogs about their own pets, they're [helping] them laugh, they're helping some of that burden drop off a bit. And the dogs just lay there, saying the more the merrier."
With Christmas just days away, the comfort dogs – pups trained not to bark and to be canine good citizens – are helping to relieve the pain in a way that only dogs can.
"At a high school school today the reaction was overwhelming," says Johnston, who hears the tales from her bevy of handlers. "Dogs have the amazing ability to zero in on the person in front of them that has the greatest need. They can have six or seven people sitting there and they go to the one who has the loss. The dogs know; it's amazing to watch."
The furry troupe has grown to eight dogs (a ninth will join them Tuesday) and they plan to stay in Newtown through Saturday, providing comfort and stress relief at schools and at vigils, or wherever else they're called.
And while the children have benefitted a lot from canine comfort, adults are also quietly yielding to their charms as well.
"We're finding the adults are holding it in," says Johnston, "and then they see the dogs and you see them visibly start to release that tension."
To learn more about the Lutheran Church Charities's K-9 Comfort Dogs program, click here.
'Comfort Dogs' Relieve Emotional Stress in Grieving Newtown
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'Comfort Dogs' Relieve Emotional Stress in Grieving Newtown
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'Comfort Dogs' Relieve Emotional Stress in Grieving Newtown
