22 Jan Introducing Our Facility Dog, KENNEDY
Dental Assistant Kayla Black and our facility dog, KENNEDY.
We would like to share with you exciting news regarding a new service that is available in our pediatric dental office in Wilmington, NC.
Research has shown that 30 to 40 million Americans avoid the dentist entirely because of dental anxiety. The number is even larger if you consider all those who are able to go to the dentist but then experience some degree of anxiety during their dental visits. At Coastal Carolina Pediatric Dentistry we are always looking for new, innovative ways to ensure that our dental patients, your children, have the best dental experience possible! We are working together with the non- profit organization, paws4people® foundation, to bring Animal Assisted Intervention to our dental practice utilizing a highly trained Facility Dog. Animal Assisted Intervention is proven to lower heart rate, reduce blood pressure and mitigate the symptoms of anxiety in general.
paws4people® has assigned us our Facility Dog, KENNEDY. KENNEDY was raised and trained by the paws4people® foundation and began her training when she was only three days old. She knows over 100 commands. She is now in the process of finishing her training with our dental assistant, Kayla Black, who is her Primary Handler. KENNEDY’s litter mates, along with the other dogs at paws4people® are being trained to assist individuals with disabilities such as PTSD, autism, seizure disorders and anxiety. Some are being trained to work as Facility Dogs in the court system to reduce anxiety for victims, children and adults, as they testify. Others work with first responders.
Please visit www.paws4people.org to learn more about the training of these amazing animals! You can read more about Kayla and KENNEDY’s story at https://paws4people.org/give/kayla-black/. You can follow Kayla and KENNEDY’s training journey on our Coastal Carolina Pediatric Dentistry Facebook page and on Instagram. LIKE our page and our posts will automatically show on your Facebook Newsfeed. KENNEDY is in our Wilmington office now, and will gradually begin to see more and more patients as she acclimates to our office. We hope to bring her to the Leland office soon. We will keep you posted on her progress!
We have put precautions in place in our practice for our patients who have a dog allergy or have a fear of dogs. Contact us if this is a concern and we will inform you of our protocol.