Therapy Dog Kayla's Story, by Marie Pence

Gentle Lab Finds Her Calling

Despite her humble beginnings, Kayla turned out to be a very special dog indeed!

She started life with a breeder in Los Banos, and her second home was with a family who had gone to get one of her puppies and took her home instead.

She was born with Entropion, which is a condition where the dog’s eyelids are turned inward and their eyelashes scratch their eyes. Her second owner had the Entropion fixed and had her spayed, but after 18 months, he decided that he didn’t have enough time for her.

We had lost our previous dog a few months before. A friend of ours knew that Kayla was looking for a home and we went to San Jose to meet her ─ she was about 3½ or 4, a chocolate lab weighing 89 pounds, pretty sad and clearly in need of love and attention. 

We adopted Kayla in 2013. We were her third home and, as it turned out, the perfect place for her to thrive and for her sweet and loving nature to shine through. 

Kayla Wins Over Everyone She Meets

As soon as she arrived, Kayla seemed to understand that this was her forever home. We started exercising together and she gradually got down to 65 pounds, just right for a lab her size. She had the sweetest disposition and seemed destined to be a therapy dog ─ so easy to take to outdoor restaurants, to visit friends, etc.

Getting Down to Work

After I retired, the first thing I did was find out about the therapy dog program at Stanford University and Stanford Hospital (Pet Assisted Wellness or PAWS). We took some classes together and after about six months of training and testing, we were certified as a therapy dog team. The nationwide organization that we were part of is called Pet Partners and Stanford requires certification through them every two years. 

Being a therapy dog team was a delight, taking us out into the community to meet new people and hopefully brighten their day. Kayla and I visited students and athletes at Stanford University with several other dogs in the program and brought lots of joy and stress relief to them.

We also did visits at the hospital, primarily for nurses and staff. We visited the hospital twice a month for two hours. There would be 5-6 dogs and we would sit in a common area and staff would come and pet the dogs. Sometimes there would be 100 people coming over the two hours. You could see the smiles as the nurses walked down the hall toward us. 

The hospital prints up “baseball” cards for the dogs, and this is Kayla’s card, looking very serious but don’t be fooled … therapy work was the high point of her day.

A Job Well Done

The main qualification for a therapy dog is temperament. The obedience skills can be learned, but a calm temperament is something dogs are either born with or not. I’ve had five dogs in my life and Kayla is the only dog I’ve had who knew instinctively how to do this work. 

We worked as a therapy team for 4 years and loved every minute of it. In her modest and self-effacing way, she let me know every time we put on our uniforms and headed over to the campus or hospital how much she appreciated her role as a therapy dog. But then Covid struck and everything was shut down. 

Sadly, Kayla didn’t live long enough to resume visits when Covid was over, although the program is thriving with many new dogs for folks to visit. Many of the people we met still ask about her, and her family misses Kayla every day, cherishing the memories of our time with this gentle loving soul.