Pet Partners offer animal therapy to students in need

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - The simple act of petting a dog can unleash feel-good hormones, lower blood pressure and increase happiness.

A new therapy animal program that began in October at C-Bar-V Ranch aims to offer those benefits to emotionally disturbed or disabled youth who live at the school. Starting last month, Teton County Pet Partners organized a human-canine team each Sunday afternoon to give some of the students an activity to look forward to.

A 13-year-old boy named Darien (C-Bar-V declined to provide last names for students in the program) sat inside the school with a towel on his lap holding a 13-year-old Chihuahua named Ani.

A few feet away, Ani’s human partner, Brantley Sydnor, held the leash and Ani’s brother, Cecil.

They chatted about the dogs while Darien stroked them.

“Did you know Chihuahuas come from Mexico?” Sydnor said.

“You got these dogs in Mexico?” Darien asked.

“Well, that’s where the breed is from,” Sydnor said. “Originally, they’re street dogs, scavengers. So they keep my kitchen floor really clean.”

Darien visibly relaxed as he petted the dogs and Sydnor explained how she came to own a pair of Chihuahuas.

During her junior year in college at James Madison University in Virginia, she was lonely and missed the dogs she had grown up with.

“I was really struggling,” Sydnor said.

So she went to a nearby shelter to look at getting one dog and came home with two, littermates who were so close with each other they couldn’t be separated.

In 2011 after moving to Jackson, Sydnor realized Ani was getting depressed by spending so much time indoors during the winter so she began volunteering for Pet Partners. The dogs enjoy the break in routine and like to meet and greet people, she said.

Darien read a picture book to the dogs and stopped to hold the book up for the dogs to examine the images. His favorite part, he said, was asking the dogs to do tricks and rewarding them with tiny treats.

C-Bar-V Program Director Patty Talley said that in the weeks the program has been going she has seen positive results.

“It’s been wonderful,” Talley said.

Dawn Camic, another C-Bar-V employee, said she’s noticed changes, especially in a teen named Isaiah.

“You could see him starting to open up,” Camic said, “interacting with the animals.”

Although many C-Bar-V students go home on the weekends, others have no family to visit or are court-ordered to stay at the residential school, said Pet Partners spokeswoman Kelly Chadwick. Those are the kids who may need animal therapy the most.

Teton County Pet Partners, begun in 1997, has about 30 therapy-animal teams, Chadwick said, but could use many more. Dogs and their handlers regularly volunteer at St. John’s Medical Center, MorningStar Assisted Living Center of Jackson Hole, with the National Military Family Association and C-Bar-V. Anyone interested in becoming a Pet Partner or having a visit may visit TetonCountyPAL.org.

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Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, https://www.jhnewsandguide.com