Dog joins the John Howard Society of Brandon

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This article was published 11/02/2020 (2347 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Visitors and clients of the John Howard Society of Brandon might have noticed a recent addition to the staff roster.

While he’s got a small frame, he has a big presence and an unmistakable lust for life.

Alfie the golden retriever puppy is only 12 weeks old as of Monday, but he’s already hard at work helping restorative justice facilitator and owner Michelle Funk with her clients.

He still has a long way to go in terms of training, but Funk has seen a positive impact in the two-and-a-half weeks since she got him.

“This is my first dog I’m training to be a service dog,” Funk said. “The first little bit (of training) is just socialization, so taking him to work, introducing him to people, introducing him to all kinds of different things, noises — everything like that. Between a year and two years (old), he is qualified to start going through the St. John Ambulance therapy dog program.”

Depending on Alfie’s performance and his rapport with Funk’s clients, he may eventually get some extra training on top of that. 

Funk got the idea to get a therapy dog from a victim services worker in Winnipeg who has her own dog. 

“She just told me that it completely revolutionized the way her clients talk to her and open up to her,” Funk said. “Most of us when we see a dog, it just tends to calm us down. We start to open up. They give us a good, fuzzy feeling inside.”

After deciding to get a therapy dog, she found a breeder who specializes in breeding them. She said this breeder gives temperament tests to their litters of puppies.

Alfie hasn’t just been around the office either, he’s gotten the chance to go with Funk into the community to visit schools, including Brandon University. Though golden retrievers can be boisterous, Alfie takes on life with a calm demeanour. His formal name is “Alfred” (it says so on his breeding papers), but the pup uses a more casual name at work.

“He’s chill, he’s extremely calm,” Funk said. “He seems to know when he’s working. He seems to be able to pick up on cues when clients are emotional.”

Funk said that her clients agree that Alfie is calm. “I think everyone sees him and they see that he’s a puppy and I think they get a little bit worried that he’s going to be rambunctious but then they spend just a little bit of time with him and (say) ‘wow, he really is calm’,” she said.

She added that she’s noticed that sometimes when clients are talking about emotional or triggering subjects when Alfie is around, they talk more to the puppy than they do to her.

According to Funk, Alfie knows that when his service dog vest gets put on, it’s work time. When it comes off at night after they go home, Alfie knows he can let loose a little and run around. After sleeping for large portions of the day, he can finally burn off some energy.

While Alfie needs to be with Funk when seeing a client right now, he will hopefully be able to visit other facilitators’ clients after getting training. So far no clients have objected to Alfie’s presence, but Funk said that there are plans in place for if a client isn’t comfortable around dogs or has allergies.

 

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