Ark Services for Youth

Kim Marsh is a Certified Pet Therapist - pictured here with Cooper

 The reason that inspires me to volunteer is watching the connection that occurs when they meet Cooper. It is so meaningful to watch their faces turn into faces of joy and love for a canine.  The conversations that take place after the initial meet and greet of Cooper, opens up their hearts to talk about a special pet that has been part of their lives.... whether that is in the present or in the past. Everyone happens to have some type of animal that has had an impact on their lives, which brings back all of those happy memories releasing the happy chemical in their bodies. 

 What we enjoy about our visits at The Ark are the connections that come from those that come to visit with Cooper. On our typical visits to other visiting facilities, Cooper only has time for belly rubs and spreading his furry love. Here at The Ark, the young visitors really enjoy watching and talking about what Cooper loves to do... and that is to perform tricks.  This special time gives us a special opportunity to get the visitors involved and create hands-on visits with them. We are learning more about how the young visitors like to interact and learn more about the process of becoming a therapy team and what the difference is between that of a service/emotional support and a therapy dog. We enjoy trying to come up with new tricks that the young visitors can help shape the trick, and take part in showing them how the training process works.  It is fun to fill up the car with all of his tricks and show them how talented he is and how much he loves to show that off for them. When they laugh and giggle this creates a special love in Cooper's eyes, that is passed on into their eyes. 

 My home is filled with a loving family of my Husband, Craig and two human daughters, Morgan and Madison. We currently have three furry babies, (Linus, Peppermint Patty and Cooper) that are all trained Therapy dogs. Cooper is my only dog that is certified with the Alliance of Therapy dog. I started this therapy dog journey back in 2016 when our Red-fox lab, Linus picked us when we went to pick out a puppy from a local breeder. He has this special bond with our youngest daughter. This special bond helped me open my eyes to the world of emotional support/service and therapy dogs. I received a certificate in Human-animal intervention from Oakland University- Center for Human-Animal Interventions. With this specialized accomplishment, I continued to learn more about animal assisted coaching and developed a program called Big Furry Friends. Finding here in the Southwest region of Michigan, the calling for more of a therapy dog training coach was a huge need. I then graduated from the Karen Pryor Academy and became a Certified training coach, coaching other handlers and their canines to becoming a therapy team. I have trained and certified over ten therapy teams with which ten teams are currently visiting other facilities within the Big Furry Friends program. Our team's visit at local memory care facilities, adult assisted living centers, local libraries, and many other facilities that reach out to us for visits. Three of Big Furry Friends therapy teams visit Ascension Borgess on a weekly basis. Cooper and I visit weekly at Ascension Borgess. 

     Cooper is a full English male labrador and turned three on February 22nd.  We had the honor of purchasing him from a breeder in Indiana. This special breeder breeds dogs only for service/emotional support and therapy. He was evaluated by a special trainer that informed the breeder that Cooper would be an excellent candidate for this special task.  He is full of excitement and loves to learn new tricks. He took the Karen Pryor Academy course with me and has his own special dog tag passing with special honors due to his ability of learning special tricks like pushing a button, ringing a doorbell, deep pressure therapy, paws up on a bed, and for standing in one position for bracing an individual. His favorite hobby is to play frisbee and ride his skateboard. He loves to eat pumpkin, green beans, carrots, apples, blueberries and bananas. When he visits, he loves to show off his signature move... the belly flop. He loves to get all the oohs and ahhs when he flops. It is amazing that the only thing that upsets him is the dark.  We continue to train in all types of different environments to keep up his training skill level. We have yet to have had a bus/or train ride, however since nothing seems to bother him, we believe he would love the ride.