Photo: Courtesy Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council
“This is a happy accident,” Mike Bober, president of PIJAC, told PEOPLE about the alignment between the visit and the hearings. “We had this planned for several months, so when they announced the date of the hearings, we thought ‘if there was ever a time for a bipartisan source of comfort and relief, it’s today.’ ”
“Our goal is to improve human health and wellbeing through the animal bond, and not everyone can have a pet of their own, so this is where therapy animals can be beneficial,” Mary Margaret Callahan, chief missions officer at Pet Partners, said about why she feels the visits are important.
Courtesy Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council
Callahan said these events are often full of grateful animal lovers, who are happy interact up-close with a dog again as the reminisce about their own past pets. Along with helping humans de-stress, these visits are also great for the canines too.
“They want to spend time meeting people who they have never met before,” she said of the therapy pups.
The CMO hopes these interactions help other understand the unique power of therapy pets, and the overall joy — and improvement to mental and physical health — a close bond with an animal can bring.
For Wednesday’s visit, the therapy dogs went to the Hart Senate Office Building and Rayburn House Office Building to show congressional staffers just how powerful a therapy dog’s attention can be.
PIJAC and Pet Partners hope to expand their future therapy animal events to include outdoor space, according to Bober, so “animals not typically allowed in congressional buildings, like therapy ponies,” can be included as well.
source: people.com
