Sharing K-9 puppy love with hospital front-line staff
Recognizing that medical first responders are experiencing unrelenting stress as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to fill hospitals to near capacity, Elite Detection K9 (EDK9), which breeds, raises and trains scent-detection dogs, found a way to bring some puppy love to these tireless and dedicated health care professionals.
EDK9 has about 50 puppies on its campus at any given time that are at various stages in their training. “We created the Puppy Furlough Program to enable hospital first responders to take a puppy home for the weekend to play with, experience some puppy love and, hopefully, help reduce some of the constant stress of caring for patients during the pandemic,” said Greg Guidice, president & CEO, Elite Detection K9. “The pups are energetic, high-drive Labrador Retrievers between the ages of three and seven months.”