LOUISVILLE, Kentucky – Bellarmine University has a new educator with four legs who is also known as the Mayor or Knight of Lansing.
Vince is the official facility dog for Bellarmine’s nursing program, and his job is to prepare students to work with facility dogs in the healthcare setting, said Leslie Leffler, professor of family nursing and Vince’s handler.
“Many of our clinical partners have care dogs that help their patients. And so he helps us train our students to interact with them when they become nurses. We also use them in certain pediatric simulations for nursing students so they can see what it’s like for the care dog to come and interact with a patient, relieve their pain and provide treatment,” Leffler explained.
According to Leffler, Bellarmine’s foster program is the first in the state of Kentucky and the second in the nation to place a foster dog in an educational setting.
“Healthcare is constantly changing, so it’s very important that we stay up to date with what our clinical partners in the community are doing,” Leffler said.
Vince is half Golden Retriever, half Labrador Retriever. He was trained through Paws with Purpose and their training program with the women at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women.
Elaine Weisberg of Paws with Purpose says they have trained over 15 station dogs who work in the medical field here in Louisville.
“They have a dog that behaves well, listens to signals and does different things. The nursing students here will now see how they can incorporate him into their therapy,” Weisberg said.
Weisberg says all of her dogs learn the same thing.
“They learn over 25 different signals. This is all positive training and we don’t know if they will be used as foster dogs or service dogs,” Weisberg said.
Leffler believes that there are higher demands placed on facility dogs because Vince needs to be versatile in many environments.
She says she would have liked to study alongside a foster dog during her studies.
“Never, even a year or two ago, would I have dreamed that I would be a nurse who is a professor at a university and now cares for a very well-trained and highly skilled assistance dog for the university. This is something I did not get to experience in nursing school,” said Leffler.
Leffler hopes to have facility dogs throughout the university. Vince started his new position this summer and was officially promoted from his “in training” status to a fully trained facility dog last week.
