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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.

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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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Susan Maxwell - Gail Cosler - Patti Gendreau-Pickering

Susan Maxwell, Gail Cosler and Patti Gendreau-Pickering have recently joined Gail and the K-9 Healers team.