Most people expect to find certain things inside a funeral home. Flowers. Soft carpeting. Framed photographs. The faint fragrance of lilies. Voices lowered almost instinctively as people step through the door. They probably do not expect a dog.
Yet therapy dogs are increasingly being used in funeral homes, memorial services and funeral planning meetings. It is a corner of therapy dog work that receives far less attention than hospitals, nursing homes or schools, but it may be one of the most demanding environments in which a dog is asked to work. The American Kennel Club has even developed guidance specifically for selecting and training therapy dogs for funeral homes. What caught my attention was not simply that dogs are doing this work. It was what they must learn not to do.
A funeral home therapy dog cannot enter a room like the family pet greeting company at the front door. Enthusiasm that would make people laugh at home may be completely wrong during a visitation. The AKC describes the appropriate dog as confident but quiet and calm. Beyond ordinary obedience, the dog may need to tolerate prolonged petting, remain quietly beside someone for an extended period, settle into a down-stay, place its head gently on a person’s knee, and move through a room when directed by its handler.
Think about the environment from the dog’s perspective. There may be dozens of unfamiliar people arriving within minutes of one another. Some will approach the dog immediately. Others may cry while touching him. Children may sit on the floor beside him. Someone may hold him longer than expected because letting go suddenly feels difficult. The room can change from nearly silent to crowded and back again. Flowers introduce unfamiliar scents. Clothing carries perfumes, rain, cigarette smoke, other animals and hundreds of other smells a dog’s nose notices long before ours does. And then there is something we sometimes forget when talking about therapy dogs. Not everyone wants one there.
A grieving person may be frightened of dogs. Someone may have allergies. Another person may simply believe that a dog does not belong at a funeral. The AKC specifically recommends that families be asked whether they want a therapy dog present and that consideration be given to guests who may be uncomfortable around dogs. Some funeral homes notify visitors that a therapy dog is on the premises so people can choose whether to interact.
That detail interests me because it challenges one of the easiest assumptions to make in therapy work: If our dogs bring comfort to many people, then more access must always be better. It isn’t.
Good therapy dog work includes knowing when presence is appropriate and when absence is the more respectful choice. There is another side to this unusual work that I hadn’t considered. Some funeral-home dogs become part of the grieving family’s story long after the service has ended. Currie-Jefferson Funeral Home in Alabama describes its therapy dog, Teddie, a Yorkie Poo, as a regular staff member who greets visitors, attends arrangement conferences and is sometimes held by children during services. The funeral home says people have returned months after a loved one’s funeral simply to visit Teddie again. That stopped me.
Months later. Perhaps someone remembers the flowers. Someone else remembers the music or the photograph beside the casket. But apparently there are people who also remember the little dog who happened to be there during one of the hardest days of their lives.
There is no need to make that mystical. Dogs do not understand death as humans understand it, and therapy dogs are not grief counselors with fur. Their role is smaller and, in some ways, more remarkable because of it.
They occupy physical space beside grief. Warm fur. A breathing body. A head resting on a knee. Something alive beneath a person’s hand while that person is confronting death.
I have worked with therapy dogs for years, yet I am still discovering places where this work quietly exists. I never would have thought to look for one in a funeral home.
Apparently, sometimes that is exactly where someone needs to find one.
© Jim Thebarge | Stories Past, Present, and Future | Original Story.
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