Marvelous Missy the therapy dog

Missy went home with Rachel and her family in February 2014. She settled in quickly and is ‘the perfect fit’, referred to by Rachel’s parents as their ‘grand-doggy daughter’.  

Rachel said that bringing Missy home gave them ‘a routine we didn’t know we needed. We were a young couple just married when we got Missy, she brought structure to our home.’

It wasn’t until the following winter that Missy’s ‘unusual phobias’ became clear.  

Rachel tells us that Christmas decorations, especially Christmas trees, bring out anxiety behaviours in her. ‘If there’s a Christmas tree up and she’s left for a few hours home alone, she’ll be very upset, she’d act like she’d been left for days.’  

Rachel suspects that her previous owners had abandoned her around time of the holidays; ‘she used to panic and hide under the car if she saw us packing our bags… but we’ve taken her on enough holidays now that she knows the bags mean we get to do fun things.’  

Missy has never let her past experiences affect her opinion of people, she’s so loving that she was even scouted to be a therapy pet!  

Rachel said, ‘she’s like a little emotional sponge… if someone’s having a bad day or they’re just not quite right she would get really clingy with people.’  

They had been chatting to the Pets as Therapy people at DogFest one year and they suggested that she’d make a great candidate. She did fantastically in all of their very intense assessments and went on to work as a Pets as Therapy dog for four years.  

Rachel shares one story of a time when Missy visited an elderly woman who had grown up with animals during a Care Home visit: ‘initially [the woman] didn’t even register that Missy was there, she was just watching the telly, and then Missy put her head on her knee and it was like life just suddenly just came to her. She just suddenly sat up straight and effectively dove off the chair to give Missy cuddles.’ 

Missy retired from her role as a therapy dog this year at 11 years old.  

Missy brought so much love and joy to the people she visited, and she loved these visits herself. But, at 11 years old, they were starting to tire her out too much, so Rachel and family made the decision to retire her.  

Her difficult past has never dampened Missy’s love for people, and Rachel’s family have been more than happy to go without a Christmas tree all these years to protect her peace.