A Little Therapy Dog's Big Life

My working dog taught me how to work...and live.

Ella jumped up in the back seat as I parked the car, wagging her tail and bouncing up and down, eager to explore a new place. On this sunny August day in Los Angeles, we had come to UCLA’s largest hospital to be tested on whether we qualified to become a therapy dog team. Ella was my first dog, a rescue golden retriever I'd adopted three years earlier, so this was a new experience for us.

Perhaps it’s not right to say the therapy dog experience was new for Ella. One moment she would be frolicking at the park; the next moment she would walk up to a homeless man sitting alone and rest her head on his knee. Neighborhood children knew she would sprint at top speed to greet them, but stop and sit so she wouldn't barrel them over. If a friend offered her treats while another friend was petting her, she would stay with the one petting her.

A neighbor who was a nurse at UCLA told us about the therapy dog program, believing Ella was perfect for it. But I had mixed feelings. At first I’d loved the idea. Who doesn't want to see a friendly golden retriever cuddling with hospital patients? But as I learned more, a refrain from therapy dog experts made me uneasy:

“The dogs know it’s time to work.”

“They go into work mode.”

“The dogs change when they put on the uniform.”

I knew little about working dogs, but plenty about working humans. Even when we’re doing work we love, it's still work. Work can be good and rewarding, but also stressful and frustrating. I worried that work would stress Ella too. Finally, I decided to let her decide. If she enjoyed therapy work, she would do well on the test; if not, she didn't have to do it.

So, on that sunny August day, we walked toward the hospital entrance and stepped inside as the automatic doors opened. Ella lit up. Eyes bright, ears perked, nose twitching, she looked intently at me as if to say, “Hey mom, this is important, isn't it? Tell me what to do and I'll do it! Just tell me what to do!” I lost my breath for a moment, overwhelmed by the joyful, purposeful, determined creature on the other end of the lead. “So this is what work looks like,” I thought.

Ella passed the test. On her score sheet, the evaluator wrote: “So cute, very relaxed, very engaged and interested, likes to get on her back and accept petting.” The “hug” exercise, when the evaluator embraces the dog to see if it reacts nervously, may have unduly influenced the score. Of all the test exercises—navigating crowds, hearing people shout, seeing equipment thrown across the room—candidates are most likely to bite the evaluator during the hug. Ella not only accepted the hug, but lifted a paw and wrapped it around the evaluator’s shoulder to hug her back.

We served as a therapy dog team with UCLA’s hospitals for the next five years. In that time, Ella comforted countless patients, relatives, and staff. She loved to snuggle with patients and turned tears into laughter with her funny ways, sprawling across their beds belly up, finding a way to climb into a chair with a patient and become a 40-pound lapdog, and always, always offering her paw so patients could hold hands with her. Whether visiting a child undergoing chemotherapy or a stroke survivor in intensive care, Ella found her way around IV lines, feeding tubes, and ventilators to put her paw into the patient’s hand.

While it does not come as naturally to me, I am learning to live and work like her. I recently found myself asking how I would put words to my work ethos. I picked up a pen, and ten words flowed onto paper:

Work hard. Be kind.

Listen. Tell the truth.

Live bravely.

I wondered how these words had come so easily. The answer: Ella taught them to me. Out of everyone I knew, she most perfectly embodied these values.

Work hard. Be kind.

During a Christmas event with other therapy dogs, we visited the oncology ward. A frail elderly man in a wheelchair and his wife came to watch us as we sang carols. While the other dogs stayed in place, Ella approached the man, sat at his feet, and rested her head in his lap. He and his wife began to weep. I do not know why: perhaps it was their last Christmas together, perhaps they had received difficult news, perhaps they missed their own dog. But Ella knew, and she went where she was needed, not where she was supposed to be. Her love guided her work.

Love is hard, but it belongs in every field of work, from medicine to teaching to finance. No matter what we do, our work affects others. We make the best choices for ourselves, our colleagues, and our communities when love guides us. As the apostle wrote, “Love never fails.”

Ella visiting a mother and baby

Ella also taught me to set boundaries with work. Hospital policy limited therapy dog shifts to two hours. At first, we worked the full two hours. I would treat her afterward to frozen peanut butter yogurt at an ice cream shop, and then we would head home to nap. One day, we left after an hour and a half. Ella skipped her post-yogurt nap that day, eager to go for a walk and play fetch. I tried another 90-minute visit the next time, with the same result.

Ella gave so much during each visit that the final half hour depleted the last of her reserves. While her job was to comfort people, my job was to care for her. So I limited her shifts to 90 minutes, to help her balance work with play. Choosing this for Ella helped me see that I also work best when I set limits, and that I lead best when I help others do the same.

Listen. Tell the truth.

Ella and I visited Lillian, a young girl with leukemia, while a TV crew was filming a feature on therapy dogs. As Lillian and Ella played together, the reporter asked Lillian’s mother how therapy dogs help. She said, “It's a big, big treat. It’s nice when no one is asking her how she’s feeling, and just sits with her and hangs out.”

When the therapy dog program director asked me to share advice for handlers a few years later, I thought of Lillian and wrote, “Don't be afraid of silence. Sometimes the best thing for the patient is to pet your dog and not have to make conversation. Almost everyone who visits a patient asks them how they are doing. Patients appreciate dog visits because the dogs don't ask questions like this.”

Ella taught me to listen. We humans often leap to conclusions or formulate responses while someone else speaks, instead of quieting our minds and absorbing what we hear. Working with Ella, I learned the value of silence. It creates space for people to pluck up the courage to speak their minds and hearts. And when life brings sorrow, silence can comfort in moments when words can only fail.

When it is time to speak, we need to tell the truth. Before I adopted Ella, I was honest in a literal sense; I wouldn’t lie or deceive. Being truthful with myself was harder. I expected myself to be capable, confident, self-sufficient. If I felt otherwise, I thought it weakness.

Shortly after I adopted Ella, my father had a stroke. When he and my mother (who had stayed at his bedside for a month) were ready to leave the hospital, I went to prepare their home. I walked in, saw newly installed hand rails and disability aids, and burst into tears. Ella ran to me as I sat alone on the floor and licked the tears from my face. She showed me it was right to grieve and to feel afraid.

Accepting this truth has helped me encourage others to accept it too. I am not the only person who has tried to muscle my way through pain and not acknowledge its impact. But when we are truthful with ourselves and each other, we can extend grace and help carry each other through life.

Live bravely.

In May 2018, Ella was diagnosed with a heart-base tumor. The specialist who oversaw her care said she had never seen a dog handle cancer treatment the way Ella did. She would run into the veterinary hospital to see her friends, fall asleep during procedures because she was so relaxed, and shake everyone’s hand post-procedure to thank them for helping her. Between hospital visits, she lived life to the fullest. She ate well—burgers and waffles and ice cream and anything else she wanted!—took long walks, watched ducks, chased squirrels, and played fetch at the park.

Three months later, Ella passed away. A friend sent a note that captured who she was and what she did for so many: “I can assure you that Ella will continue to live in the hearts of those she touched with her smile. She was wonderful at bringing the best out of all who would share her joy in life. She will be truly missed, but the warmth in my heart will always stay with me.”

His words were truer than I realized. Over a year after her passing, I still encounter people—often strangers—who tell me their joyful memories of Ella, having met her in the hospital, the park, everywhere she went.

Ella's UCLA business card

Her life and work continue in unexpected ways. One day, a new office colleague said to me, "I heard you do therapy dog work! Tell me about your dog." I explained my dog had passed away a few months before, but spoke about the work and showed Ella's UCLA “business card” with her picture and name. My colleague gasped. She had undergone surgery recently at UCLA. When she awoke, she saw Ella's card tucked in the nurse's badge holder, and “the face of a golden named Ella” gave her peace.

Such moments helped me realize Ella lived a big life, one that still resonates after her passing. I thought, if a little dog can live such a big life, shouldn't we all?

With her love and courage as my example, I chose to imagine a new life—more time with loved ones; creative space to write stories that had come alive inside me; purposeful work that challenged me. Then I began to create that new life. I left a good and (too) comfortable job, launched my own business, and started writing.

Everything I do now is new to me. I can only see one step ahead at a time. So I do what I know I need to do, the obvious task in front of my face. Then the next step appears when I need it, without fail and not a moment earlier. To paraphrase Thoreau, I have built my castles in the air, and now I am building the foundations under them. It is joyous, painstaking work.

I do not know how this journey will unfold. But I have discovered the paradox that life can glow with clarity even when I don’t know what it holds in store. I welcome every unexpected encounter and revelation as I craft a new life. Joy and fear fill each day in equal measure. I am grateful for both, because together they tell me I am choosing a good life over a safe life.

I grieve Ella’s loss as much as the day she passed. Yet I find that what is good in me—joy, purpose, gratitude—has grown stronger, to help me carry grief without bitterness. Even after her passing, she continues to bring out the best in me. So, every day, I remember what she taught me.

Work hard. Be kind. Listen. Tell the truth. Live bravely.

Ella holding hands with a mother and child