South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Boca residents' pet works as therapy dog
By Mary Thurman Yuhas
Special Correspondent
September 7, 2008
In April, Gizmo, a
9-year-old Pekingese owned by Mark Brilliant and his
15-year-old daughter, Allison, of West Boca Raton, went
from being a full-time lap dog to working as a part-time therapy
dog.
He charms everyone wherever he goes, Mark Brilliant said. So he
was not surprised when Alice Amos, a licensed
mental-health counselor and owner of Center for Creative
Counseling in Boca Raton, wanted to use Gizmo as a therapy dog
at her clinic.
"Gizmo is a natural," Amos said.
Amos uses animal-assisted psychotherapy to calm her patients.
"It's a source of comfort to children and adults," she said.
At the clinic, Gizmo walks around the waiting room and greets
patients. During consultations, Amos said adults stroke him and
frequently hold him. Children perform tasks, such as walking
him.
Amos recalls one particularly contentious family counseling
session where the father was feeling sad. The dog walked over to
him, and he began to pet the dog. "It helped calm him almost
immediately," Amos said.
Mark Brilliant said Gizmo has passed the 10-part test from the
American Kennel Club and earned his Good Citizen Certification.
It included questions such as, "Does the dog ever bite?"
"He passed it on his first try," he said.
The Delta Society is a worldwide, nonprofit organization that
promotes the use of animals to help people with both service and
therapy. Pets can be certified through the society's Pet Partner
program, in which the pet and owner must pass a test given by
the group.
"It is the most widely recognized certification for therapy
dogs," said Michelle Cobey, resource support for the
Delta Society headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.
Cobey said there are more than 10,000 registered pet-and-owner
teams in the U.S.; however, "We can't meet the numbers of
facilities that want Pet Partners to visit," Cobey said.
Allison Brilliant said she is the one who found Gizmo. When she
was 7, she became separated from her father at a shopping
center. She wandered into a pet store, and by the time her
father found her, she had bonded with Gizmo.
For more information about therapy dogs, call the Delta Society
at 425-679-5500 or visit
www.deltasociety.org.
Copyright © 2008,
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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