ST PAUL, Minn. — Just months ago, a 6-year-old Willa Buchanan could barely walk the hospital halls. Now 7, there's pep in her step.
"Willa wasn't eating enough to grow and maintain her weight, so she ended up needing to have a feeding tube, a G-tube, placed in her stomach," said Amy Lawler, Willa's mom.
Not only were her parents there to support her through surgery, but so was Riggs, Children's Minnesota's first medical dog. A dogtor, if you will.
"Once we had Riggs, our kid went from being just sad and scared to actually, we saw her personality come back," said Elizabeth Buchanan, Willa's other mom.
Sure, equally adorable and important volunteer therapy dogs visit patients and their families too. But they typically stay for a couple of hours, and they're not in hospital rooms during procedures.
Whereas Riggs is a full-time working dog. He works 40 hours a week, going home each night with Annika Kuelbs, child life specialist and medical dog handler at Children's Minnesota.
"He gets so excited to put his vest on every morning," Kuelbs said. "Then once we get here, he just charms everybody."
Kuelbs says she conducts "medical play" with Riggs and individual children to prepare them for what's going to happen to them.
"I use little pills, like real pill bottles," she said. "I take the label off and I put little treats in there and we pretend that they're pills. He also pretends to take liquid medicine with a syringe."
Then, during real procedures, the two-year-old Lab/Retriever mix can distract patients with tricks or simply lend a paw to squeeze. Children and their families are encouraged to express whether they'd like Riggs there, and how close to the patient he can be.
It was Can Do Canines that trained Riggs to be ADI-certified, before handing him over to Kuelbs.
"We finally got our program started," Kuelbs said.
She says, nationwide, increasingly more hospitals have medical dogs on staff, and says donors made it possible to bring in Riggs as Children's Minnesota is a nonprofit hospital system.
Riggs sticks to the sixth floor on the St. Paul campus. A spokesperson says families on remaining floors, as well as at their Minneapolis campus, are eager to have more medical dogs.
As for Willa's family, they've run into Riggs at follow-up appointments.
"Feeding tubes are painful," Willa told KARE 11. "I don't think I liked anything else besides seeing Riggs."
"It really gave her a story for her surgery where it wasn't just the story of something painful but a story of getting to meet Riggs," said Lawler, adding that her daughter was so proud of herself once she started walking on her own again that she sent the dogtor a thank-you card.
Riggs started his new job in May and has since served around 160 patients during roughly 250 procedures. More information about the medical dog program and how to support it can be found online.
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