After the bombing, comfort dogs come to Boston
The dogs are specially trained therapy dogs brought to Boston by Lutheran Church Charities. They will be stationed at the First Lutheran Church of Boston, a few blocks from where bombs exploded at the marathon finish line on Monday.
The dogs have reassured people following crises like shootings and natural disasters, and they regularly visit nursing homes. Tim Hetzner, the team leader for the Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dogs , said he got the idea after seeing how well students responded to therapy dogs in the wake of a 2008 school shooting at Northern Illinois University, National Geographc Daily News informed.
In Boston, like on their other visits, he'll take the dogs only where they're invited and will be careful to let people approach the dogs instead of vice versa, in case anyone is afraid of or allergic to the animals. The dogs are scheduled to stay in the area until Sunday.
In December, some of the same dogs went to Newtown, Connecticut, to comfort children and adults in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
After that event, National Geographic's Amanda Fiegl interviewed Tim Hetzer about the work of the K-9 Comfort Dogs, and delved further into the healing power of dogs. Here is an excerpt from her report:
The Human-Canine Bond
Why does petting a dog make us feel better? It's not just because they're cute, says Brian Hare, director of Duke University's Canine Cognition Center .
The human-canine bond goes back thousands of years. Dogs descend from wolves and have been attracted to humans ever since we began living in settlements-a source of tasty garbage. That created an advantage for wolves to live near humans, and since it tended to be the less aggressive wolves that could do this more effectively, they essentially self-domesticated over time, according to Hare.
Part of what makes dogs special is that they are one of the only species that does not generally exhibit xenophobia, meaning fear of strangers, says Hare.
"We've done research on this, and what we've found is that not only are most dogs totally not xenophobic, they're actually xenophilic-they love strangers!" Hare said. "That's one way in which you could say dogs are 'better' than people. We're not always that welcoming."
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