Man’s best friend is the best therapy
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ADAMSVILLE, Tenn. — At Adamsville Health and Rehabilitation Center, therapy comes in the form of a 4-year-old shih tzu named Charlie Brown. “He passes a lot of rooms before he gets here and he knows which room to go in. He knows exactly which room to go in,” resident Garmelia Perkins said. Perkins explained her past two years at the rehab center would not be the same without her best friend. “We have the biggest time, and if he’s not asleep, I lay there and we just lay there and I talk to him, you know,” Perkins said. Helen Austin is the activities director at the center and said Charlie showed up with one of their previous residents. “She brought him back up here to us and asked us if we would take him in and that way when she came back here to live he would already be here for her,” Austin said. After Charlie’s owner died, they could not stand to see him go, so they made him the official facility dog. They say he is more than just a pet. “It absolutely helps for depression because it gets them in a better mood and it shows that they have a companion here,” Bellis May, a social worker at the center, explained. “He’s just wonderful to have around. he makes everybody’s day better, knows where the treats are, and knows who’s gonna feed him,” Austin said. Perkins said she knows she is Charlie’s favorite, and does not know what she would do without him. “I know he loves me,” said Perkins. Charlie is a part of the pet therapy program at the center, where residents’ family and friends can bring in pets to visit, as long as the animal is cleared with the facility.
