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Red Cross K9 Action Team provides comfort therapy
Photo
Members of the American Red Cross K9 Action Team with their dogs are, from left, Carole Magargee with Skylee and Toree, golden retrievers; Joan Heverly with Reno, an Australian shepherd; and Kathy Miller, team founder, with Gus, a goldendoodle.
By LINDA M. LINONIS
SHARON, PA.
The American Red Cross K9 Action Team provides “comfort therapy” with wagging tails, soulful eyes and willingness to cuddle.
The human team members transport the canines to events where they “spread comfort and smiles, one paw at a time” among military personnel and their families and victims of disaster.
Coordinator Kathy Miller of Rocky River, Ohio, a volunteer with American Red Cross of Mahoning Valley, founded the team in 2009. Miller, who has multiple sclerosis, uses her service dog, Gus, an 8-year-old goldendoodle. Other members from Red Cross of Western Pennsylvania Region are Joan Heverly of New Wilmington, Pa., and her dogs, Oki, a 10-year-old German shepherd, and Reno, a 5-year-old Australian
shepherd; and Carole Magargee of Greenville, Pa., and her dogs, Skylee, 13, and Toree, 21/2, both golden retrievers.
The team participated in a recent Stand Down/Resource Fair at American Legion Post 299, 1395 E. State St., sponsored by Community Action Partnership of Mercer County. The community-based intervention program was geared to help veterans, said Larry Scheetz, Mercer County Veterans Affairs director. “We wanted to provide a place for veterans to learn about social services available to them,” said Scheetz, who served 39 years in the U.S. Army and recently retired.
“Dogs have a calming effect on people,” said Miller, a retired veterinary technician.
The K9 Action Team, she said, is a “paws-itive” drawing card at the events such as Stand Downs. “We’ve traveled all over Ohio,” Miller said. The all-volunteer team also has attended events at Pentagon City, near Arlington, Va.; Flags of Freedom in Canton; and Family Day at the Air Force Reserve’s 910th Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station. The team sets up a display on who they are and what they do.
Miller said the dogs go through extensive training and testing. “They have to pass the Canine Good Citizen test for temperament and obedience,” she said. The dogs also take a therapy-dog test. “The dog’s tempermaent for therapy work must be calm, and they must listen to commands,” Miller said. “We never stop training.”
The team received a U.S. House of Representatives certificate of congressional recognition for its work in a veterans health and wellness resource fair. Miller has helped start K9 teams in Connecticut and Michigan.
A love of helping people motivated Heverly to volunteer with the Red Cross. “I love to see how the dogs interact with and help people,” she said.
Heverly said the team has attended many Yellow Ribbon events, when military personnel are being deployed or returning home. “Children will ‘adopt a dog’ and sit and cuddle with them,” she said. “Soldiers will sit, stroke and love the dogs.”
Heverly said she is gratified to know that the K9 Action Team is popular and helpful at such events. “The dogs are here for emotional needs,” she said.
As a Red Cross disaster volunteer, Magargee said she did the “human” side in Hurricane Ike in 2008 in Texas, the tornadoes in Alabama in 2011 and most recently, the fire in March at Wade D. Mertz Towers in Sharpsville, Pa.
How the dogs interact with military personnel and children warms her heart, she said. Skylee, who is semi-retired, is a fixture at Magargee’s side. But at an event in Washington, D.C., Skylee walked away from Magargee and went to a young woman, whom the team later learned was a veteran. During a Family Day event at the air base in Vienna, Skylee and Magargee toured a C-130 cargo plane, and Skylee sat in the engineer’s seat, where the pilot took her photo and joked that the engineer had been replaced. Later, at a Yellow Ribbon event in West Virginia, a woman approached Magargee and asked if the golden retriever was Skylee. The woman, whose first name was Skylar, showed Magargee the photo of Skylee in the C-130 and told Magargee that Skylee had been in her seat.
“How the dogs connect with people is why we do it,” Magargee said. “They’re unconditional love on four legs.”
Visit www.facebook.com/AmericanRedCrossK9ActionTeam. Since the volunteer K9 team travels at its own expense, donations and gas cards may be sent to the American Red Cross K9 Action Team in care of American Red Cross Stark County Chapter, 408 Ninth St. SW, Canton, OH 44707. Countryside Veterinary Service provides free care for the dogs.