- Come on.
Come on, let's go get the ball.
I'm Ellen Morell and I'm a chaplain for Harmony Hospice.
And this is Laci and she's my therapy dog
who goes with me to visit my patients.
Come on.
And we just visit people and enjoy ourselves.
Good girl.
(laughs)
Hi, Donna, this is Ellen from Harmony.
I was just checking in to see how you're doing.
You've been through a difficult period
and I hope that you will take a day or two to
relax and refresh and rejuvenate yourself.
I try to check on the diagnosis
before I go to see people because
sometimes it makes a difference.
I have been a dental hygienist, which I did for 10 years.
I have been a planned giving consultant,
which was lots of fun,
helping rich people give money away
is not a bad way to make a living.
And then, finally, I succumbed to the call from God
and became an Episcopal priest.
On my way, when I decided to move to Arizona,
on my way here, I had another call
that said you need to be a hospice chaplain
so I came and applied and got a job and here I am.
(water running)
Let's go, go see the veterans.
(dog panting)
Let's go, come on.
You see the puppy, huh?
- [Woman] Do you see it?
- Laci, can you sit?
Can you wave to the little boy?
Wave.
Good girl.
(laughing)
Were you in the Army?
We thank you for your service,
'cause what you did made it possible for us
to do what we do, so we really thank you.
- This is my husband, Bob Budak.
He's a Vietnam vet.
He worked, he was in the Army.
This, actually, is a wonderful place.
We've worked really hard to get him here
and we're very excited.
And you notice how alert he got
and how excited he was to see Laci, so,
he's very receptive to therapies,
receptive to having people and talk with him
and he enjoys it and he smiles.
He smiles, yeah.
- Laci has been my friend, my sidekick for years and years.
She's eight-years-old.
I got her when she was just a puppy.
My son had her mother and I went to see the puppies
but told him I would not, under any circumstances,
take a puppy home.
And I don't know how it happened,
but on the way home, I looked over and there she was.
(laughing)
And we have been pretty much inseparable ever since.
- So if you go to our website harmonyhospice.org
and you look at meet the employees,
Laci is very, on the very top.
(laughs)
She has her own professional photo
and so we often joke, again, she's the boss.
(laughs)
- I read his book and I thought he was a good man.
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah.
I've had lots of dogs in my life.
I've always had dogs.
And I've loved them and I've cared for them
but I've never had one that I actually called my sidekick
because Laci's like that little poem,
remember, when you were in grade school.
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me
and what can be the use of it is more than I can see.
Well, that's Laci.
Everywhere I go, she goes.
If I happen to come in without her,
the question always is, "Where's Laci, where's Laci?"
(upbeat music)
Hi.
I brought Laci to see you.
- [Woman] Laci or Stacy?
- [Ellen] Laci, like lace on your dress, like lace fabric.
- Oh, how can anything be so ugly and so wonderful?
(laughing)
- I like to tell the story about
when I first took her to some people.
There was a lady who had advanced dementia
who could not say anything intelligible,
who sort of just chattered all day.
I walked in with Laci and she looked down at her and said,
"Nice dog."
(laughs)
So, Laci touches people in many ways that are surprising.
More than once, when she's been invited,
she's climbed up in bed with somebody
and laid with them as they were dying,
so that they die with their hand
on a nice, soft, furry head.
(gentle music)
She failed agility, she failed obedience,
she really failed motherhood because it took us
two-and-a-half years to get her pregnant
and then she ended up with three living puppies
and hated them.
Really hated them.
Sit.
Wave.
Good girl.
But she's finally found her calling.
She's as good a therapy dog as you could have.
Hey, you've made a friend.
You know how to make dogs happy.
- She's great.
- [Ellen] I consider this part of my service to God.
- I like animals.
- And even though I'm not as religious
as a lot of chaplains are, I don't insist that people pray,
I don't insist that they find salvation in Jesus,
I think this is my ministry to the world.
And Laci's ministry to the world.
So, we're doing this, truly out of a sense of call,
as a minister would say.