Comfort dog provides peace, joy to cancer center patients

It's another day on the road for LuAnn Kelly and Laura Lewallen, but they're transporting special cargo: Olive, their comfort dog. The day's job site: the Weatherford Cancer Center.

"Some places that we go, we're there for comfort and peace," said co-coordinator Laura Lewallen. "Some places we go, we're going to just bring joy."

The trio is part of the Lutheran Church Charities. Their church, St. Paul Lutheran, owns Olive.

"If we walk into a hospital room and say, 'Hey, would you like to chat?' They might be like, 'You know, maybe no,'" said co-coordinator LuAnn Kelly. "But we walk in the room and have a beautiful golden retriever, and as they're petting that dog, they might just start to talk."

Even though life in a cancer center may be monotonous, the patients opened up once they saw the golden pile of fur.

"It makes you feel really good because she's so sweet," said cancer center patient Linda Swindle. "You just want her to get up in your lap and hold her like she's a lap dog."

As the medicine drips, Olive is a reprieve from boredom.

"She's fun, she's lovable, she's furry. That's what I like," said cancer center patient Jamie Jones. "When y'all bring the dogs in, that helps even more, so it makes it fun."

A fun way to forget where you are for a moment.

"Just a beautiful dog, who's not going to judge and not going to give advice," said Kelly. "It's just going to give you pure joy and love and compassion."

Olive doesn't forget about the staff. All the nurses give her some love, too.

"The places we that we go, the people we see," explained Lewallen. "Some are in tough life situations; they just are."

But if Olive can bring even a little joy, she's done her job well.

"I just think Olive has this — somebody mentioned her soulful eyes," said Kelly. "I just think that when she is on and connected to a person, what she does well, there's something going on that I don't understand."

That's okay, because Olive understands.