Spreading paws-itivity
Marguerite Nicodeme works with Snoopy the dog to bring moments of cheerful relief to people with cancer
I am a nurse practitioner at the Curie Institute in Paris, where we care for people with cancer. But really, this is Snoopy’s story, which is why he’s pictured here, at work, where he’s about to give his patients some much-needed attention.
Snoopy is a handsome, three-year-old English Setter. It’s hard to believe it now when you look at him, but he was found in the countryside, near Bordeaux, France, in a dire state: he was greatly emaciated. But even though he was so withered, you could still see that he had a glint in his eyes. We rescued him in December 2022, and he’s been a therapy dog ever since.
Snoopy has two main tasks as an ‘employee’ at the institute. The first is to cheer up the patients and the second is to keep up the morale of the hospital workers in this stressful environment — and we all love him for it. Snoopy spends his weekends and evenings with me or with one of my colleagues; we have a rota to equally share the responsibility of looking after him.
We recently had problems with some medical equipment, so there were delays in seeing some patients. Snoopy went into the waiting room to meet them and you could see the stress and angst melt away; they were all taking pictures with him and stroking him. A study of 200 hospitalized people found that just 10–20 minutes of dog therapy was enough to soothe their pain; it also helped to reduce their anxiety and depression (B. Carey et al. PLoS ONE 17, e0262599; 2022).
He’s the only dog that we have at the institute, and we really lucked out with him because he’s perfectly suited to his job. He’s so adaptable — if you need to do some office work, he’ll just chill out in his basket. If you want him to cheer someone up, he’ll lavish them with affection.
Having chemotherapy isn’t a pleasant experience, but Snoopy helps to make it that little bit more bearable. I don’t think he considers it work. He’s so happy to come in and say hello to everyone.
Nature 626, 226 (2024)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00243-0
This story originally appeared on: Nature - Author:Benjamin Plackett
