Pet Therapy for Hospice Patients

Bring the healing, unconditional love of therapy dogs to those who need it most.

Here's a program guaranteed to touch your heart. Home for Life, in Star Prairie, Wisconsin, is a very special shelter: a shelter for rescued special-needs animals who have been given a second chance at life.

Now some of those rescued animals who found hope at Home for Life are giving back. Certified for pet therapy, rescued dogs are touching the lives of lonely, fragile, and sometimes forgotten members of society - cancer patients, the mentally ill, injured soldiers, and residents of nursing homes and hospices.

The Sit*Stay*Heal program provides healing pet therapy to hospital patients and to the terminally ill. This collaborative program began with the Fairview University Hospitals to bring solace and joy to children who are undergoing treatment for cancer.

The program creates and nurtures a special patient-pet bond that can help comfort and heal. Volunteers and certified therapy dogs commit to relationships with specific patients. Together, they consistently visit the same hospital or hospice patient every week. They do this knowing, in some cases, that their patient is dying.

Home for Life dogs currently participating in the programs have struggled through their own problems and special needs to become shining stars when visiting their friends. Though sometimes boisterous at the sanctuary, they are gentle and sweet when they are with patients - perhaps recognizing a kinship that crosses the lines of language and species.

You can help. Your donation through this Gift That Gives More helps fund a pet therapy visit for a hospital or hospice patient, through Home for Life's Sit*Stay*Heal program.