COLORADO Priest's dog senses pain, comforts congregation
The dog helps soothe people in counseling.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
LONGMONT, Colo. -- You know that the Rev. Mickey Flaska is coming when you hear a soft jingling from near his heels.
The priest at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church seldom goes anywhere without his 4-year-old cocker spaniel mix, Sadie.
She wags her way through classrooms at the school. She warms his feet in his parish office. But Sadie's role at the church is more than just an adorable ornament at the end of a leash.
"Sadie can sense when people are hurt," Father Flaska says, his dog stretched out on the carpet near his desk. When someone is upset, he says, Sadie walks over and rests her blonde head on the person's foot.
She understands pain, he says. Sadie was abused until Father Flaska adopted her at 6 months. Sometimes simply seeing a black shoe will jolt fear through her body, as she remembers something she had to endure.
Now, she helps the priest reach out to people in the congregation. He usually keeps Sadie in his office when he counsels people.
"She makes them feel more comfortable," he says.
People who otherwise would not talk to the priest go out of their way to greet the dog, he says. He calls Sadie a "common denominator" that opens up conversation with other animal lovers.
"It helps people know you're human, too," says Father Flaska, a University of Colorado graduate who was a financial service representative before turning to the seminary when he was 38. "People sometimes think they have to place us on a pedestal, but we're people, too. We care about the same things. Our job is just a little different than the guy next door's."
Feeling right at home
Sadie doesn't attend Mass. She'd probably roll on her back -- legs up in the air in her favorite nap position -- and snooze under the altar, Father Flaska says. But his homilies often tie in with the dog. He reads from "Pets' Letters to God," a book that he keeps on his desk with other canine books and pictures.
Cathy Wright, who watches Sadie in the business office when Father Flaska conducts Mass, says she loves to hear the sound of Sadie's collar jingling down the hall.