Buckeye Paws, the official therapy dog program of The Ohio State University and Wexner Medical Center, recently visited HVCH. Buckeye Paws was founded in order to promote the mental and emotional health of staff, faculty and students by providing comfort through a highly-trained and certified dog-handler team.
We had a visit from Crockett, an English setter who is 8 years old, with his owner Susan England. We also had Ellie, a Collie mix who is 8 years old, with her owner Judy Lima. Both Crockett and Ellie are rescue dogs and their owners work for OSU.
The Buckeye Paws program consists of going through training for the dogs to become certified therapy dogs and at this time, they only visit employees and do not go into patient rooms. Each Buckeye Paw pup goes through the training program with their owner. We loved meeting Ellie and Crockett, who both have ties to Hocking Hills. They both got to go swimming and hiking after their visit. Hopefully we will get to visit with them again!