Omri and His Mom Complete 600 Faithful Paws Visits

I adopted Omri from a shelter in 2015 when he was just three months old and very quickly recognized that he was born to be a therapy dog. He loves people and never meets a stranger!

When he was about four months old, I took him to a “puppy social” class where the owners sat around the perimeter of the training area and let the puppies play. Omri went and greeted all the people and ignored the other puppies! I checked into therapy dog organizations and found Faithful Paws. We started class when he was a 4 ½ month-old rambunctious terrier puppy, but somehow we survived, and he took the CGC test at six months old. He was seven months old when he made his first therapy visit.

Over the years, Omri has matured into a capable therapy dog, and he still loves his job as much as he did when he started. His sensitivity to how people are feeling is still amazing to me. Time and time again, he has randomly approached someone (on visits as well as out in public), and as they are petting and interacting with them, they start talking. The encounter invariably ends with something like, “I was having a really rough day/week/etc. and this is exactly what I needed.”

During the summer of 2020 when Covid brought everything to a halt, Omri started to become truly depressed without his visits. He had been doing about 12 visits a month and suddenly that all stopped. He already knew a lot of tricks and enjoyed performing, so we went into intense tricks training mode. That summer, Omri earned all five of the trick dog titles offered by AKC and now knows over 50 tricks (and is still learning more). Now, when he walks into visits, we are often greeted by “oh, that’s the dog that does all the tricks!” and he is immediately in his element. He puts his whole heart into every visit and is never happier than when he is doing his job.