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About K-9 Healers

K9 Healers was founded in order to enrich the relationship between people and their canines. Working together as a team, people and their dogs can visit schools, hospitals, long term care facilities. In this work, they bring the word of being a responsible dog owner to children or cheer to a patient/resident away from their home.

Gail Furst

Gail has been interested in using animals to bring joy and comfort to people for over 15 years. She has provided therapy dog services to the Canandaigua VA, Thompson and Penn Yan’s Long Term Care facilities. She has been involved in developing programs for NYS DDSO, Penn Yan, Canandaigua, and Rushville schools. She has had 3 certified pet therapy dogs who have passed on and is training two new Boxers to continue their work. Gail founded her own business K9 Healers in order to teach others how to spread the benefits of pet therapy work. Her classes offer more than dog obedience training, students learn massage and holistic care for their companion.

Gail has been doing Pet Therapy programs with the elderly, children, and inpatient psychiatric settings for over 11 years. Her first therapy dog was Rosie, the fawn colored boxer shown here. She then adopted Sadie, a retired racing greyhound who was later certified as a Pet Therapy Dog. Gail lives in the country with her 2 Boxers, Miss Lily, Dahlia and a Cockatiel named Pearl, a black cat named Magic and a parakeet named Frieda.

Gail works in the human service field as a coordinator for worksite wellness projects and as a community builder in a small rural town where her position includes providing pet therapy and educational programs to youth at the local youth center. She sat on the Board of Directors of a former local organization called "TheraPets". Gail, was a former board member for the Yates County Humane Society as well as the Genesee Valley Boxer Rescue Group and volunteers for Greyhound Pets Of America. Gail is a member of The Dog Obedience of Rochester New York Training Club. Gail is certified through e-training for dogs (cheryl@e-trainingfordogs.com) in Canine CPR/First Aid, Vet Clinic Puppy Manners and Socialization and is studying Canine Massage. She is certified as an evaluator for Therapy Dog International and AKC Canine Good Citizen.

Gail has volunteered at the VA Hospital in Canandaigua, Thompson Hospital's Hospital Long Term Care facility and continues to do educational programs in local schools. Her Boxer, Ali was a Canine Good Citizen and was certified by the Delta Society and Therapy Dog International as a working pet therapy dog. Gail and Ali provided animal assisted activities/therapy to Alzheimer/Dementia patients, acute psychiatric and Medically Impaired Chemically Addicted (MICA) patients. People with mental and physical conditions which causes them to require facilitated living were also visited by Gail and Ali. Miss Lily has been trained as a therapy dog. Dahlia is certified by Therapy Dog International.

In 1994 Gail developed a program and wrote a grant to support a program for youth in a small rural county. The intent of this program was to help youth become aware of service to their community through volunteering at the local long term care facility. This remains as an ongoing after school program in the Yates County community. The youth learn how to provide pet assisted visits to the residents in a local nursing home using a certified therapy dog as a bridge for communication. This intergenerational program teaches children reverence for life and improves their feeling of self worth and was featured in the Humane Society of the United States' directory of programs that prevented violence using animals. Her program also uses "First Strike" information developed by the HSUS which makes the connection between animal abuse and human violence. This program was also recognized and featured in the 2001 annual report by "America's Promise" a national program led by General Colin Powell to encourage communities to support their youth.

Gail is certified is an evaluator for Therapy Dog International and AKC’s Canine Good Citizen. She also temperament tests dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and other suitable animals for therapy work using Wendy Volhard’s Puppy Apptitude Test. In addition, Gail provides puppy aptitude tests on 49 day old puppies for suitable placement in pet and working homes.

Gail has recently successfully completed 3 classes-

• Herbal Remedies and Aromatherapy
• Canine First Aid and CPR
• Vet Clinic Puppy Manners and Socialization

She is in the process of taking a canine anatomy and physiology to prepare for my certification in canine massage.

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Marnie Race

Marnie first met Gail when she volunteered at The Homestead Nursing Home on Saturday mornings to help with a Pet therapy program bringing kids into the Nursing Home to visit with Certified Therapy Dogs. This was Gail's Pet Therapy Program. It was at that point Marnie realized how important Pet Therapy was to the Residents of the Homestead as well as the children. Next, Marnie trained her dog Shadow, a husky/aussie blend, in Gail's class and certified him with Therapy Dog International and also Canine Good Citizen. Shadow then came to work with Marnie once a week when she was a Social Worker at the Homestead. Shadow is now retired from doing pet therapy.

Shadow was a challenge to train and Marnie realized how important it is to train your dog so she started assisting Gail with her Obedience classes. Six years later Marnie is teaching for K9 Healers as well. Marnie has attended workshops by Wendy Volhard on Nutrition as well as conferences on training dogs and canine behavior. She was the Admission Coordinator of the Homestead Nursing Home where the dog obedience classes are a favorite activity of the Residents on Thursday nights. Marnie now works at Van Bortel as a service advisor.

Marnie has volunteered with Genesee Valley Boxer Rescue, Greyhound Pets of America, the Humane Society of Yates County, as well as assisting Gail with many Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dog International test for numerous Dog Clubs. Marnie is also a Canine Good Citizen evaluator.

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Patti Gendreau-Pickering

Patti met Gail when she trained her first pet therapy dog about 15 years ago. Her first therapy dog was Popcorn, a Samoyed who was a Canine Good Citizen and was certified by the Delta Society and Therapy Dog International as a working pet therapy dog. We volunteered at the VA Hospital in Canandaigua . We provided animal assisted activities/therapy to Alzheimer/Dementia patients, acute psychiatric and Medically Impaired Chemically Addicted (MICA) patients. We also volunteered at the Industry School in Rush. We lost track of each other until the spring of 2007. Since the fall of 2007 Patti has been an assistant instructor for classes held in the Fairport Baptist Home.

Patti is an Eastman Kodak retiree. She spent 38 years working for Kodak, primarily in Financial Administrative positions. She lives in Chili with her husband Gary, her yellow lab Mr. Cooper, who is in training to be a pet therapy dog and her cats Mr. Mulligan and Miss Putter.

Scott Iaia

Scott first met Gail when he enrolled in level 1 dog obedience class with Sullivan, his 6 month old Boxer rescue pup. After 2 level 1 classes, and a level 2...Sully became a certified therapy dog!

Sully has long since retired, and Scott was looking for another challenge, so he began training one of Gail's Boxers, Dahlia, and again after a series of classes, Dahlia too became a certified therapy dog, who now travels with Gail to several facilities, and reading programs.

Scott's latest challenge has been Albert, yet another of Gail's boxers, who, at the ripe old age of 7 months is actually ready to be tested, but, has to wait until age 1. Outside of assisting Gail in pet therapy training, Scott works for Bausch & Lomb as a planner/analyst in the contact lens division, and enjoys being the go-to pet sitter for all of the family and friends animals.

Scott believes it was because of how challenging boxers were, that he realized the importance of training, not only to have the pet that you want, but , to enjoy the residents, and family members reaction to a truly well behaved, and well trained therapy dog.

Gail Cosler

Known as the "other one" Gail Cosler has been with Gail for over 15 years at Homestead. I have been the Activities Supervisor at the long term care nursing facility for 19 years.

Gail first approached the other Gail about a program then known as Therapets that brings children and dogs into the facility to provide a program with our residents. Little did she know that this was going to be one of the best programs she could have for her residents. Her belief is dogs, children, and music are the best programs to have around for the residents. (Now her residents would have to throw bingo in there also!!)

She has trained three of her dogs at Homestead in Gail's classes. She says, "I must admit they are the best classes. Training your dog is so important not only for you, but for the dog. They so want to please us and what better way then to be able to communicate in a positive manner through these classes."

Presently, Gail brings in her boston terrier, Beemer. He is named after the BMW motorcycle that he rides on with her husband. Goggles and all. He brings so much comfort, support and love to many of her residents. Just the other morning she was asked to bring him to one of our residents rooms that was having a particularly bad morning. When she saw Beemer, she said "there's my baby". Gail placed Beemer on her lap and she started to pet and talk with him. She was talking about all her "problems" and all with a huge smile on her face. She so enjoyed being able to hold, pet, laugh and talk with him. The rest of her day was so much brighter. For Gail, this is what it is all about. Those moments of pleasure because our friends, our dogs.

Gail lives in the country on 52 acres with her husband Joe, three dogs, Beemer, Lacey, Sadie and our cat, Mouser. A few of her favorite things to do are motorcycling, music, camping but especially playing with her four year old granddaughter, Isabel.