Meet Dilly, CHOP's Anxiety And Stress Reducing Dog

PHILADELPHIA — The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia welcomed a new, furry member to its team of health experts.

Dilly, a 2-year-old yellow Labrador, is CHOP's first ever facility dog.

Trained by Susquehanna Service Dogs, Dilly will help CHOP patients and their families cope with stress and anxiety while at the facility.

Not only will he help relieve the hardships of undergoing medical treatment, Dilly is trained to do tasks such as teaching kids how to take a pill, keeping them calm during medical interventions, providing incentives for them to get out of bed for a walk, and much more.

Facility dogs are often used in physical, occupational and speech therapy sessions, for procedural support, and to help with ambulation, distraction, and coping skills.

"Dilly will be a wonderful tool in the toolbox for our Child Life team, as well as other clinical partners like our physical, occupational and speech therapists," said Lisa Serad, program coordinator for the Gerald B. Shreiber Pet Therapy Program at CHOP. "There are so many times we knock on a patient’s door, and the patient simply glows when they see a dog. It makes it so much easier to build rapport and motivate many of our patients with a furry four-legged partner!"

While CHOP patients and families are already familiar with hospital volunteers and their registered therapy dogs as part of the Gerald B. Shreiber Pet Therapy Program, Dilly’s role will be different.

He will work with a CHOP staff member, focusing on goal-oriented visits rather than social-oriented visits that our volunteers and their registered therapy dogs are accustomed to providing.

Dilly's arrival at CHOP comes thanks to funding by the Dunkin' Joy in Childhood Foundation and Hope in the Air Foundation.

In 2019, CHOP received philanthropic support from the Dunkin’ Joy in Childhood Foundation’s Dogs for Joy program and Hope in the Air Foundation to help establish a facility dog program and begin the process of obtaining a facility dog, which included an application process, multiple interviews, and “Meet the Dogs” sessions to help ensure the chosen facility dog was a good match for CHOP.

Elizabeth Olsen, a Certified Child Life Specialist at CHOP and Dilly’s handler, along with two back-up handlers and Serad, completed extensive training at SSD with Dilly in July before his arrival at CHOP.