Furry Therapy

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Personal Growth, Uncategorized

A box of Kleenex sat beside him. He stroked her soft white head, dabbed his eyes, and apologized. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s okay,” I replied. I planned to sit there as long as he needed the fluffy comfort of my Therapy Dog and she appeared to be willing as well. I didn’t know his story. I didn’t feel it right to ask. I just knew this dog was fulfilling her mission of compassion.

She never talked. She just smiled, reached for the dog, and caressed her flat ears. When I’d first started visiting the center, I looked for people who were excited and extraverted; those who gave affirming feedback to my efforts. I learned quickly that the ones in the corner, perhaps even looking half-asleep, might be just as interested, just as in need, and just as responsive – in their own way.

He never said much. He just moved towards her in his wheelchair whenever he saw us coming. My Taffy dog seemed to understand his non-verbals and made her way towards him. He bent over and pressed his face against hers. It was as though they had their own conversation. I stood quietly and let it happen.

“She’s white! She’s white! My dog was white!” Tears edged out of the woman’s eyes. “Oh how I miss my dog. She’s white.” The tears were bittersweet. Sadness and joy. Taffy stood for a while, and then sat down patiently to accept the ongoing firm and friendly petting. “She’s white!”

I heard the shrieking first. Then I saw its source: crumpled little woman gesturing wildly. Taffy was not to lick people, but what was I suppose to do when some of these people delighted in such affection? “She kissed me!” Taffy was unperturbed by the uncontrolled motion. It almost seemed this stocky thick-furred dog related best in such situations.

“She likes me!” The troubled teenager got down on his knees and enveloped her in a hug. “Can she stay here?” We stayed. I assured him that indeed this dog did like him. Finally I had to leave. I gave the young man Taffy’s business card with her picture and bio that read:

English Cream Retriever. Hobbies – exploring open spaces, rescuing fruit that kids toss out of their lunches, and playing with her stuffed animals. Taffy has been a registered Therapy Dog since 2015. She volunteers at a nursing home and a healthcare center, and has even been at Denver International Airport. She endears herself to people by “talking” and teasing.

I never planned on having a Therapy Dog. My husband and I had planned to purchase a modest-sized RV and volunteer with Mennonite Disaster Service by following the aftermath of floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Then he died.

I never planned on Taffy being a Therapy Dog. She was the high-spirited, strong-willed pup who flunked Puppy School. But, little by little, she passed her off-leash work, Canine Good Citizen Basic and Advanced, and the evaluation and certification for Pet Partners.

I believe that just as humans are created by their Maker for a purpose, dogs are created by their Maker for a purpose, too: herding, retrieving, guarding, serving, sensing illnesses and distress, alerting, cuddling, hunting, sniffing for bomb threats or avalanche victims. I have a purpose. Taffy has a purpose.

“… on the sixth day, God created animals…….And God saw it was good…(Genesis 1)

(First published in the (Kansas) Country Register, February/March 2018)

Text and photo @Naomi Gaede Penner

The Power of One: You + Me = We

07 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Caring and Compassion, Mark, Personal Growth

≈ 1 Comment

Naomi and Mark climbing at Death Valley

Between first grade and sixth grades, I changed schools five times; only once was I without a friend. In Anchorage, Alaska, I’d walk through the door and tell my mother, “Mary and I painted on easels,” or “We saved our silver crayon for special coloring.” In Tanana, along the Yukon River, Sally and I baked oatmeal-raisin cookies. In Tulare, California, Linda and I incessantly colored “stained glass” designs we randomly scribbled and after school rode our bikes with streamers flying on the handlebars. In Soldotna, Alaska, Karen and I tunneled in tall grass along the beach bluffs.

In Browning, Montana, I sat alone in class. No one would be coming to my house after school; no one to whisper to in the clarinet section. That was the year I stopped eating and I learned to cry without making a sound, in the bathroom stalls.

As an adult, I climbed my first of Colorado’s 53 mountains over 14,000 feet. Courtney was my guide and inspiration. I followed her deliberate zigzag traverse to the summit. “Just three steps this way– and stop to breathe,” she said. I couldn’t have done it alone.

Taffy watching the deer.

Twice a day, I walk my English Cream Retriever. On a mild day, the time goes quickly. I observe Taffy sit and survey the deer, cock her head and watch the cows, or pounce on a vole hole. But on days when the wind howls and I know I’ll need long johns and a wool scarf, I’m not eager to go out. (Taffy already has her thick white fur coat on and earflaps down.) I text Melissa. She’ll meet us! Her long-legged Vizsla bounds towards Taffy. They race up and down the hills. Melissa and I talk about good books, places we’ve explored, and how we should have worn snowshoes. Forty-five minutes later we smilingly tell each other what a great walk it was. Alone, I might have turned back.

Working together on a wall quilt.

Anyone who has quilted knows how time progresses more quickly, and with more pleasure, when more than one person engages in the process. “Look how much we got done!”

When my grand boy relocated from Canada to Colorado, his parents wanted him involved in Drama Camp, Lego Camp, and Vacation Bible School. He is outgoing and social, yet he protested loudly, “But I don’t have a friend.” No one.

“Proving up” an 80-acre Alaska homestead.

In a letter to my father’s parents in California, my mom wrote on January 13, 1963, “We wanted to work on the homestead Wed morn but didn’t have the courage to go out in the bitter cold, we did however go out yesterday in the heavy fog… the snow is getting deep enough that it really bogs us down, we cut and trimmed 12 trees, even got a fire going after sprinkling on some gas.”

It took my parents three winters to clear an airstrip, nearly a half-mile long. Imagine if only one of them had been working? Six years? Would one have given up in the hip-deep snow? In the below zero temperatures? One and one equal two; and two makes “we.”

Not alone. The power of more than one.

If you’re not an extroverted person who gleefully assesses a group of people like a bee views a patch of clover, “we” doesn’t have to be a group. One come-along-side person is all the encouragement we need. One is a powerful number.

This article was first printed in “The Country Register” (Kansas), Jan/Feb 2016 issue. i

Find and purchase Naomi’s Prescription for Adventure books, at www.prescriptionforadventure.com. Follow her on Facebook (Prescription for Adventure.)

Who’s Trailing You?

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Personal Growth

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Father and Son

When I asked what he thought of his father’s job as a handler of bomb-sniffing dogs, the 12 year old said proudly, “I want to be just like him.” That was my take-away after I’d interviewed the man. The 8 year olds’ brown eyes were enthusiastically determined. He took a gulp of air as he ran past me after his dad, a muscled ex-Marine. “I do this every night. I’m going to be strong like him.” I kept walking as the sun settled over the Rocky Mountains – and I kept smiling.

“My dad and I fixed that.” “We’re going to the shooting range.” “Everyone else is leaving for the weekend, but I’m staying home with dad.” These weren’t unusual comments from the teenager. He thought his father was the best.

“We have to interview someone for speech class,” said the middle-school student. “I want to do it on you.” She was a social and inquisitive child with a warm heart. She’d accompanied me on visits to a rehabilitation with my therapy-dog-in-training, flipped and sugared deep-fried spicy pumpkin doughnut drops in my kitchen, and divulged things that were “only for our family, but you’re part of our family.” For some reason, she liked hanging around me.

Good therapy — for everyone!

“Send me to Grandma Leppke,” I pleaded. Our family had just moved from the Kansas wheat fields to Alaska tundra, and I wasn’t happy about it. The small living room was crowded with boxes; one of which my five-year-old body fit nicely inside. I longed to return to the Peabody farm and follow Grandma with the tin can bucket she’d made me for gathering eggs. I wanted to sit beside her on the bench seat when she drove the bulky-fendered truck to the wheat co-op – and we’d share a tall glass bottle of Nesbitt’s orange pop. I imagined watching her milk cows and then squirt milk across the room to a loud meowing cat crouched in the barn corner. I yearned to shadow her.

Following Grandma

In a Career Guidance class I taught, I asked the students, “Who is your role model for growing older? The students looked at me blankly. Most of them were in their 20s. What would older have to do with them now? I prodded them to reflect on whom they wanted to follow, emulate, and learn from – and why. Grading those papers was like reading mini-stories – some funny, some sad.

My Aunt Marianna is someone I follow

Looking ahead, whom are you following? What is it about them that holds your attention and compels you to trail after them when they disappear over a hill? Looking behind, who is following you? What kinds of ripples are in your wake?

Following Papa

(This was first printed in “The Country Register” (Kansas), Dec-14/Jan-15)

I Carry my Mother In me: I am Strong

03 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Personal Growth, Womens' Safety and Protection

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Ruby Leppke Gaede driving a snow machine on the Gaede-80 Homestead, Soldotna, Alaska

I carry my mother in me. I am strong.

She carried her mother in her, she was strong.

My grandmother carried her mother in her, she was strong.

My foremothers who migrated from Holland, to Poland, to the Ukraine, to America were strong.

I am strong.

The air was unusually warm and the Alaska sky was blue as the June lupines. Two generations of us sat on a quilt at Memorial Hill where my parents were buried. Four of us were grown women; one a young woman; two were girls. We grieved the loss of a mother and grandmother. We were angry. We were bewildered. We were orphaned. We needed to heal and move forward. “How do we carry Mom/ Grandma’s character in us? How do we emulate her?” I posed a question that led to a slow conversation.

Mom was a Mennonite girl who had been uprooted from Kansas wheat fields to Alaska tundra; then to an Indian reservation in Montana; then to California – and back to Alaska. She knew about packing and unpacking with four kids. And, she knew about raising children with a bush pilot doctor who was often on-call for days and nights – and years.

She fashioned home along the Yukon River where she baked bread daily, made homemade ice cream from river ice, and thought a hot dog roast at minus 20 degrees would be “fun.” Later, on our 80-acre homestead, she used a chainsaw, shoveled feet of snow, and carried a ladder – that dwarfed her 5-foot 2-inches – so she could repair the back porch and the chicken coop. Alongside Dad, she shot a moose, field dressed it, packaged it on the ping-pong table, and cooked it for supper. On an artic Christmas night, she took her cassette player and a holiday treat, and went on a solo outdoor caroling ministry.

I emulate her by baking and taking. Most often it’s cinnamon yeast bread, baked in a round can –like Mom baked her molasses brown bread. I’ve taken to neighbors, friends, and shut-ins. Not only do I imitate her in the things I do, but when I am in difficult situations I wear either her black diamond (hematite) ring or a garnet ring I bought with money she gave me at her last Christmas.

I carry her in me when I shovel snow and chop ice on my sidewalk and driveway. I carry her in me when I relocate (23 times) –and I pull out my rolling pin and pastry cloth and bake round bread. I carry her in me when I drive cross-country and the roads are slushy, it’s dark, I’m alone, and I have hours to go. I am strong when I lug my 10-foot ladder to check a clogged gutter. I am strong when I fly in a small plane into an isolated Alaskan village – and know no one. I was strong when at age 40 I was widowed.

I carry my mother in me. I am strong.

She carried her mother in her, she was strong.

My grandmother carried her mother in her, she was strong.

My foremothers were strong.

I am strong.

How do you carry your mother, or another family member, inside you?

Who are the people before you that were strong?

How are you strong?

(First published in “The Country Register” (Kansas), April/May 2014.)

Good Therapy

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Personal Growth

≈ 3 Comments

She was just a black Pekingese runt who got lost on the black tiles of the linoleum squares in our kitchen. I was just a nine-year-old girl living on the hospital compound where my father was a Public Health physician on an Indian reservation.

10 years old at the Napi Elementary School in Montana

10 years old at the Napi Elementary School in Browning, Montana

Each day on my way to school I walked anxiously past two liquor bars with open doors, looked behind me for skinny stray dogs, bent my head into the ubiquitous wind, and braced myself for a day with no friends – and a gym teacher who yelled at me. My mother worried because I had no appetite and only ate cheese crackers and cranberry nutbread. “Tiny” was my therapy. I dressed her in doll clothes and held her tightly.

Copperfield was my husband’s hunting dog. The butterscotch Golden Retriever crashed through ice to retrieve ducks and dove through invisible electric fences to runaway.

Copperfield loved water!

My husband died when the pup was 10 months old. For over 16 years, Copperfield was my solace and companion. Stroking his fur and nestling my nose next to his face got me through plenty of tough times. Putting down that dog was one of the saddest things I’d ever done. I couldn’t bear to put down another; and so I planned to enjoy my independence. For six-and-a-half years, I had that freedom.

“Mom, you do better with a dog,” said my daughter last January. I knew that. I missed going for walks along the creek and hikes in the mountains. I missed the feel of a warm furry dog beneath my feet at the kitchen table when I ate my meals or read the newspaper. I missed the interruptions in my writing of articles, curriculum, newsletters, and books — when a dog wanted to play or go for a walk. Getting out of the office into moist springtime rainy air or eye-watering cold winter snowy air — cleared my mind, relaxed my drawn up shoulders, and eased my squinted eyes.

Four months ago, I brought home a creamy Golden Retriever with long eyelashes, and black eyes and nose.

I’m a doggie-mama again!

I’m greeted when I enter the house. I’m entertained by the frolicking fur ball that romps in the snow and dives into the tall grass. Sometimes I just sit and run my fingers through her thick curly fur. “Taffy” is good therapy for me.

I want to share good therapy. Taffy has already shown the innate qualities of a Therapy Dog. Together, we will visit people and children who need encouragement, a laugh, entertainment, or a quiet moment stroking a warm, loving dog.