These dogs brought a lot of joy to ill children that had to spend Christmas in a hospital

Being away from home during the holidays can be hard. Especially when one has to spend time in a hospital, away from friends and family. It’s even harder for kids that require constant love, attention and care. We hope that you, our dear readers, had a lovely Christmas celebration with your loved ones.

However, there were a lot of people that had to spend these holidays alone or far away from their relatives.
Fortunately, there are good humans that want to spread some holiday cheer to the ones that need it the most. And today we want to share an example of that!

This year patients at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston’s Medical Center started celebrating Christmas a bit earlier. Hospitalized kids were surprised by an exceptional visit of furry guests – four golden retrievers!

The dogs, Elsa, Pinto, Pluto, and Bailey, and their handlers strolled around the hospital in matching Christmas pajamas bringing joy to neurology and transplant patients and their families a few days before the big holidays.

According to the parents, the kids were overjoyed and couldn’t hide their smiles. Some mothers revealed that the dogs were a good distraction for the kids and helped them become calmer and better at expressing their emotions.

The dogs are ambassadors for the Texas Children’s Pawsitive Play Program, which, according to the Texas Children’s Hospital, is “designed to enhance the emotional well-being of patients and families in the hospital. The animal-assisted therapy dogs provide support to those who may be having trouble coping with a hospital stay, new diagnosis or certain medical procedure.”

These dogs are bred and trained to serve in pediatric hospital settings. According to the Texas Children’s Hospital, they work full-time with the hospital’s child life specialists to coordinate emotional support and therapeutic intervention across the hospital. “They’ve actually been training for this for their entire lives!”

Katherine (Adair) Galanski, animal-assisted therapy coordinator: “Elsa was our first service dog when we kicked off the Pawsitive Play Program in late 2016. We added Bailey and Pinto to the roster very recently, and they’re already hard at work making Texas Children’s a better place. There’s a lot of growth happening in our program, and we’re beyond excited to widen our ability to pawsitively impact more patients and families.”