April Manning’s two children, Mac and Lilah, had just survived the mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School. They needed stability and time to mourn.
So she did every part she could to maintain the family dog, Owen, their sweet but sick 15-year-old golden retriever, so long as possible. She postponed his last visit to the vet, keeping him comfortable as he slowly moved across the house.
Getting one other dog was the final thing on her mind. But a couple of weeks after the shooting, her children invited her to a vital presentation.
Prepared from a script and PowerPoint – ‘Why We Should Get (Another) Dog’ – they reviewed research showing the mental health advantages of owning one. This can reduce the danger of PTSD and help them feel secure. Playing together will get them outside and increase their happiness.
Mrs. Manning and her husband wondered. Perhaps a second dog can be possible.
First got here Chip, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Then, as Owen succumbed to old age, Birdie, a miniature poodle and Bernese mountain dog, was born. The Mannings weren’t alone in accepting them.
In the yr since Tennessee’s worst school shooting, wherein a former student killed three third-grade students and three staff members, families have adopted greater than 40 dogs at Covenant, a small Christian school of about 120 families.
“I really expected them to help me in nice ways, like hugging the kids when they were upset” Mrs. Manning said. “But I didn’t really expect all the other benefits from them.”
Spending time with Covenant families means understanding how they relied on each other, on traditional psychological treatment and mental health counseling, and on their Christian faith that held them together.
But also to see how often what they needed – a distraction, a protector, a friend who could listen, something untouched by the darkness – came from a dog.
Immediate response
Dogs greeted surviving children from Sandy Hook Elementary School as they returned to the renovated middle school in 2013. In Orlando, a dozen golden retrievers were on hand to provide comfort after a fatal attack at an LGBTQ nightclub in 2016. Therapy dogs who provided care surviving students from Parkland, Florida, created a school chronicle.
“Over about 35,000 years, dogs have change into extremely adept at socializing with humans, so that they are sensitive to our emotional state,” said Dr. Nancy Gee, who oversees the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Even short, minute-long interactions with dogs and other animals can lower levels of the body’s stress hormone cortisol. research by Dr. Gee et al has proven to be a lifesaver for veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and others recovering from trauma.
And on the day of the Covenant shooting, dogs immediately came to help. Covey, the principal’s dog, was at a nearby fire station where dozens of staff and students were evacuated. Squid, a retriever mix, was at the Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, helping to comfort staff when needed.
As the surviving students were put on a school bus to be reunited with their anguished parents, Sgt. Bo, a police dog, was sitting next to them.
Officer Faye Okert, a dog handler for the Metro Nashville Police Department, passed out a baseball card with information about the dogs to distract and comfort the children.
“The focus was on him,” Officer Okert said. – You were smiling after what they went through.
When families were reunited, counselors gave clear advice: To help your child, get a dog. Or borrow from a neighbor.
This led several parents to reach out to Comfort Connections, a nonprofit organization that provides companion dogs. Jeanene Hupy, the group’s founder, saw firsthand how therapy dogs helped Sandy Hook students, and after moving to Nashville, she started her own organization.
The group, which oversees a menagerie of golden retrievers, gentle pit bulls and a massive English mastiff, began its work by visiting individual homes in the days after the shooting. When the students returned to class a few weeks later, the dogs were there again.
There was something to look forward to in those moments when walking through the school doors seemed overwhelming. And when painful reminders arose – a water bottle hitting the floor, a disturbing war history lesson, or a friend’s absence – the child could slip away and hug the dog.
As Ms. Hupy puts it, something special happens “once you bring something that loves you greater than itself, which is these guys.”
A chilled presence
First it was a joke, then it was reality: everyone was buying a dog.
With donations from the community and her own money, Ms. Hupy began reuniting several parents and puppies. Even for families that could easily afford a new dog, Ms. Hupy and her trainers dramatically alleviated logistical hurdles by finding and training puppies that seemed a perfect fit for each family.
The Anderson girls screamed and cried with joy when they found out they were getting a dog, and now they’ve taught Leo how to flaunt his sunglasses and do tricks. The Hobbs children are constantly chasing Lady Diana Spencer, often fashionably dressed in a string of pearls or sweaters.
Dogs are also there during more difficult times, such as when an ambulance or police car drives by, turning on its siren, or when memorial ribbons in their neighborhood remind them of what they have lost.
“Sometimes it’s just nice to have an enormous soft pillow that does not should consult with you and just hug you,” said Evangeline Anderson, now 11.
And if dogs chew on a shoe or make a mess on the rug, Ms. Manning said, it’s a lesson in how to deal with conflicting emotions.
“We still love them and are very happy to have them. Both things can be true,” she said. “Like we can be really nervous about going back to school and yet at the same time excited to do it.”
Perhaps, parents realized, it wasn’t just for children.
On the day of the shooting, Rachel and Ben Gatlin were returning from vacation. That meant dealing with the difficulties of survival and knowing that Mr. Gatlin, a history teacher who wore a gun on his ankle for personal protection, might have run toward the shooter that day.
And although their new dog, Buddy, has adapted to the domineering behavior of their young children and has developed a tendency to eat socks, he has managed to keep the adults’ thoughts focused. Meeting his needs served as a reminder of their own.
“When you see it working, you are in total comfort,” Ms. Gatlin said.
Even the school’s chaplain, Matthew Sullivan, said the stories about new puppies told every day in the chapel “tire me immensely.”
“I wanted to hear firsthand the experiences of all these families,” he said.
Now Hank, a slightly anxious Scooby-Doo lookalike with floppy ears, has been adopted into his home, which was a bit empty without his adult children.
Alternatives
Not everyone has a dog.
For the McLeans, the solution was two rabbits.
“It’s an amazing distraction from their reality,” Abby McLean said of her children, cupping her hands to mimic holding a rabbit on her shoulder. “I find myself doing this sometimes too.”
Another family added Ginny, a turtle who can live for seven decades, to the mix of animals already in their home.
“For losing people early in life – there was something that equaled that for me, that was longevity, like a turtle,” said Phil Shay, who was picking out a turtle with his 12-year-old daughter, Ever.
Despite this, dogs far outnumber other pets. And every day they can make a small difference.
The first night that George, Jude, and Amos Bolton tried to sleep alone, without their parents, after the shooting, the slightest complaint from the ice machine or dryer was too much. Their mother, Rachel, who maintained that she liked dogs but not in her home, soon agreed to adopt Hudson, a miniature Goldendoodle puppy with doe-like eyes and wild curls.
“We didn’t realize dogs could provide comfort to people,” Jude, now 10, said as he stroked Hudson’s ears. And when Hudson returned home, he added, “he’s just been comforting us ever since.”
Now it’s easier to sleep through the night knowing that Hudson is there.
“All my friends joke and say, ‘I can’t believe you’re a dog lover now,’” Ms. Bolton said. But she added that the dog “healed this family.”
