Meet Cocoa, a 70 lb., 2-year-old, chocolate Labrador in the process of receiving approval to join the staff at the Creighton Center for Health and Counseling.
Cocoa was first introduced to campus earlier this semester at the President’s Picnic and has continued to make appearances at different campus events.
Michael Kelley, Student Counseling Services senior director, is Cocoa’s owner and has been a staff psychologist in the Creighton Center for Health and Counseling since 1980. Before Cocoa, Kelley had never worked with a therapy dog, but had read articles on them and saw how they could be beneficial to a college campus.
“College students generally don’t require pet-assisted therapy in order talk, because college students are pretty good talkers,” Kelley said. “It’s more of an auxiliary and helper thing — an unnecessary but nice thing to have. I think therapy dogs can make people feel welcomed and comfortable.”
For years Kelley and the other counseling staff discussed the possibility of bringing a dog into the Health Center.
“We didn’t have a good candidate for a therapy dog. The dogs we had of our own were not good candidates for therapy dogs because they lacked the right temperament,” Kelley said.
But last year the timing seemed right and Kelley decided to begin the search for a new dog, with the hope that it would be one he could train to eventually be a therapy dog. Through looking online, Kelley came across Cocoa in Iowa, and in November 2015, after meeting her and taking her on a walk, Kelley decided to take Cocoa home. He noted she was a mellow dog, which is what he was looking for.
“You can go through a lot of training, but you need to start with what they already are 80 percent, and you can form the other 20 percent with training,” Kelley said.
In January of this year, Cocoa began trainings. She went through three, six-week training programs — one through PetSmart and two through the Companion Dog Club in Omaha.
The trainings taught Kelley how to teach Cocoa basic obedience skills and how to be a good canine citizen. Cocoa passed the courses, and then went on to 10 weeks of making visits to local nursing homes with a therapy dog organization, Love on a Leash, in order to be recognized as a therapy dog.
Kelley saw great progress in Cocoa, especially during their walks. She no longer pulled him along, but rather walked beside him, and responded better to demands and hand signals.
“She’s 70 lbs., so if she wants to go somewhere, she will — or she’ll try to drag me,” Kelley said. “It was very important that she learned to be cooperative, and she is now. She’s easier to handle. Cocoa is very friendly and welcoming. She loves to jump, which we’ve had to discourage, but she’s a very joyful dog.”
With Cocoa trained and therapy certified, Kelley’s next challenge was figuring out how to introduce her to Creighton’s campus. Because the Health and Counseling Center is also a medical facility, the department had to take into consideration that some people are allergic to dogs, or may be frightened by them.
Kelley began by doing some research on the approach taken by other universities with therapy dogs, and said Loyola University Chicago’s program impressed him.
“Loyola’s therapy dog, Tivo, is really a star on their campus,” Kelley said. “Everybody knows and loves Tivo, who is also a Labrador.
“We began to think, if we could have that kind of relationship and dog here, it would be a great ambassador to the campus from the Health and Counseling Center,” he added.
“We want to be seen as a more approachable, more comfortable and more friendly place for students to come.”
Kelley reached out to Loyola’s counseling center, and they sent him the rules and procedures needed to have a dog on campus, which Kelley referred to when writing Creighton’s guidelines, which are currently in the process of being approved. In addition to this, the staff inside of the health center is negotiating what rules are needed if Cocoa was to be brought into the center.
If Cocoa does get consent to be in the counseling center, Kelley hopes eventually some students can be trained as handlers so Cocoa can be more present throughout campus.
“Perhaps it could become a work study assignment for really motivated people who are familiar dogs because it would require a very personal relationship with the dog,” Kelley said.
For the time being, Kelley has approval to bring Cocoa to various campus outings, and every Wednesday Kelley and Cocoa go to the Skutt Student Center fireplace at 1:30 p.m. for meet and greets.
“We’ve had students stop in Skutt to pet her, and to talk about their pets at home, and they’ll make the comment ‘Okay, now I can handle the rest of the day,’” Kelley said. “It’s kind of a comforting thing that I think college students appreciate.”