HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - The staff and young patients at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital gave a warm welcome to a new four-legged friend who has an important job to perform.
Freedom joined the other therapy dogs at the Hollywood hospital as they made their rounds and visited ill patients, Wednesday.
“Why are there so many dogs?” asked 8-year-old Daniella Garcia, a patient at the hospital.
“Because it’s all his friends that came with him,” said a staffer.
Shortly after, Garcia got to pet Freedom, as the golden retriever kept wagging his tail.
“This dog is like a member of our staff, our team,” said Kaitlin Stella, the hospital’s CEO.
Freedom recently finished weeks of training and has now joined five other dogs to help put smiles on children’s faces.
“Maybe they’re coming for imaging, like an MRI or something unfamiliar, but just the presence of a dog in the environment lightens the whole entire mood, both for the parent and the child,” said Stella.
Garcia’s mother, Louise Sandoval-Garcia, said her daughter is undergoing chemotherapy for the second time.
“[The service dogs will] lay with her. They’ll go to her bed. They’ll go to her treatment, and she’s just calm,” said Sandoval-Garcia.
The concerned parent said seeing the pups helps motivate her daughter to keep fighting.
“She doesn’t want to leave her room. This brings her out, and it’s amazing to me, because it’s not toys. It’s something different, beyond that,” said Sandoval-Garcia.
For this service, it’s a day at work well spent for Freedom and the rest of these therapy dogs.
“We really believe in the power of play and that play can heal, and so they really are one of the ways that we do that,” said Stella.
Freedom gets to work side by side with his big sister, Nutmeg.
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