Equipped with his personalized vest, Charlotte El Golden Doodle maintains an agenda. During the last four years, he has been responding to emergency calls with a paramedic team in Mont-Laurier, which.
The five -year -old therapy dog and its manager Marc Paquette with the LES Y Ambulances. Bouchard et Fils have followed the ambulances to help deliver death notices, offered support to people with suicidal thoughts and intervened in cases involving autistic patients.
His ability is to provide comfort and support, says Paquette.
“Often begins with visual contact,” he said. “It looks like a large, very harmless teddy animal, and is trained to be calm.”
He says that Charlotte’s presence has become integral in the city of the laurentians of 14,000, and his unique role has allowed the first to respond not only to gain confidence among patients, but also improve crisis management in the field.
“Charlotte is an integral part of the prehospital care system,” said Paquette. “We are available every day, late or night, to help the public.”
In her four years of service with the team, the presence of Charlotte in the community has made her a quasi celebrity, Packette joked. Recently he was asked to help provide support in the Court, the provincial police and residents in care homes.
“She is well known and has become part of Mont-Laurier’s fabric,” he said. “It’s not uncommon that when I am walking, people ask me ‘Where is Charlotte?'”
Situating situations
Initially, Charlotte began his training with a packet when he was three months old with the aim of becoming a service dog to support lifeguards. But Paquette decided to take it further.
“Really bring it to the community and respond to interventions in the field,” he said.
“We entered people’s houses. We antfutize crisis.”
Paquette says that he knows other support service dogs that work with paramedics in the province, BUT is not sure they are as integral for your team as Charlotte is for yours.
The main benefit of this program is how crisis management has improved, says Paquette.
When Charlotte approaches an individual in crisis, Paquette says that 90 percent of the time, the individual begins to open. He says his presence sometimes prevents paramedics from Have to bring people to the hospital network due to the dog’s ability to discourage situations.
“Once the crisis has been deactivated … we can refer them through 811 to other psychosocial resources,” said Paquette.
“Before, the only place [to] Transport was the emergency room. “
A complex training program
Charlotte was trained at the Mélanie Boucher’s dog school in Sainte-Thérèse, which., L’Andaciechien.
The president and founder of the school, Boucher says that the success of the dog is not just from Charlotte, but speaks of the commitment of his handler, who also dedicated hours of training.
The duo had to go through three levels of the obedience school and Charlotte had to complete between 160 and 180 hours of training, she says.
Charlotte was the first dog that the school trained for a paramedic team. Since then, about 20 have gone through the program to serve with other professionals. The school has trained about 100 dogs for a variety of needs since 2018, she says.
It is a rather complicated training process to train dogs to serve in a professional environment. It takes approximately one year, considering that the school is preparing dogs to meet a variety of people in circumstances less than ideals, says Boucher.
“Unlike assistance dogs we train for people … [Charlotte] It has to be able to approach people, “he said.
“We teach dogs to go and apply pressure points to provide comfort to people … Let’s say they will rely on them, on their knee, in their chest, where the person needs it.”
Dedicated to the dog training, Paquette would make the trip from his city of Laurentians to school on the outskirts of Montreal regularly, says Boucher.
“I’m proud of Charlotte, but I’m so proud of Marc [Paquette]”Boucher said.
