Sounds of laughter echo from a room at the UCLA Medical Center. A two-year-old patient laughs merrily as Corky, a tiny Yorkshire terrier, rolls over and dances. "I want him in my bed!" shouts the six-year-old in the room next door. Corky is just one of 40 dogs making the rounds at the huge hospital in Los Angeles, California. Every dog wears a picture identification card and a blue bandanna with a paw-print design.

A Patient’s Best Friend
In hospitals around the country, dogs are helping patients get better. At the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Sandra Barker uses her own dog to calm nervous patients. At UCLA and in New York City’s Mount Sinai Medical Center, dogs help people recover from brain and spinal-cord injuries. Most dogs practicing in hospitals today are trained by Therapy Dogs International in New Jersey or the Delta Society, an organization based in Seattle, Washington. According to Delta, 4,500 "pet partners" have helped 350,000 patients in 45 states.

UCLA’s program began in 1994. Dogs now give 17,000 patients a year the benefits of puppy love. Before joining the pack, the 40 dogs at UCLA had to pass an hour-long test to prove they were gentle enough for the job. Si’ska, a big German shepherd, surely passed with flying colors. She flops on heart patient Daniel Uribe’s bed and lovingly nuzzles him. "She is life," Uribe says. "Like sun and air."

Daily News from TIME for Kids

May 4, 2001 News Scoop