Mama Pajama Tells A Story

Linda had just been facing the fact that Willow might need a break. Maybe the almost seven-year-old dog was burned out. She'd been doing therapy work for four years. Lately she'd been a little distracted, not really "on". Linda and her two Whippets had gone running over the weekend, and she hoped that was the pick me up that Willow needed as they headed out to do their visits.

The first visit of the day was at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Linda checked in to find their assignment. The physical therapist had requested another visit for James. The young man in his thirties had a brain tumor, and had just become a hospice patient, and as such would be discharged soon. The tumor made James forget that he had a left arm. The physical therapy was geared toward helping James use his left arm, as each use would retrain his cancer challenged brain, and James would benefit.

Willow padded down the hall on the way to James' room. A doctor and nurse stopped to greet the little therapy dog. Willow was a total snob. She would have nothing to do with them. No kisses, no tricks, not even a haphazard acknowledgement of their existence. "Yah, yah, blah, blah, get out of my face, you blithering humans." Yikes, maybe she needed a whole month off, thought Linda. She's pushing the "aloof sighthound" bit to the extreme.

They entered James' room, with Linda concerned that this would be a waste of everyone's time and energy. The therapist explained that despite several dog visits, no one had been able to find a position to place the dog where James was comfortable, and where he would remember his left arm. Linda lifted Willow onto the bed. Willow sighed. Linda placed Willow next to James' left side. Willow looked uncomfortable and started to move.  "Stay!"  Willow rolled her eyes and got up anyway.  "That's it," thought Linda. "She's heading to the foot of the bed. She's done."

 Willow is a curl-up kind of Whippet. Not a sprawler. Even in her own bed, under the covers, she's in a tight little ball. She stood up and looked around. She glanced at James, who didn't know she was there because she was on his forgotten left side. She looked about the bed. Then Willow did something absolutely remarkable. She crawled over him and draped herself across James' belly. Head on his left side, tail end on his right. All sprawled out, right over him. Linda blinked in total disbelief. She couldn't have placed Willow in that position without getting a huge struggle. James became aware of Willow, because her rear end was by his right hand. He followed her body with his right hand up over his abdomen. When his right hand traveled past his midline he said "Oh!" His left hand found Willow's head.

As the therapist and Linda draped their lower jaws on their knees, Willow closed her eyes, and James stroked the dog with both hands. The hospital business bustled on for half an hour outside of that room. Inside the room a little miracle was happening. Willow didn't move a whisker. She stayed in a vulnerable, uncomfortable, detested position for a full thirty minutes. James talked to the two women and stroked the Whippet with both hands. The physical therapist and several pet therapy owners had been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to find a position that worked.

 Willow found it.