Angel on a Leash (14 page)

One of our favorite young boys asked to have Angel in bed with him as his dying wish, so she was there as he was taking his last breaths. Yes, that was tough.

One of the kids wrote a letter about his love for the dogs at the House:

My Doggies at Ronald McDonald House

By George Yeomans

Age 9

My name is George Yeomans. I have been staying at the house since the end of May. The one thing I really love about staying here is all the dogs that come to visit. I enjoy seeing all the dogs and giving them cuddles. Some of them can do tricks, like shake and roll over. They are all such nice dogs. They make me feel happy.

I know the names of all the dogs. They are Butter and Serafina, Teigh and Belle, Parker, Phoebe, Tucker, and Mr. Gruffyd Babayan. I know all the types of dogs that they are. I remember Phoebe is a Pomeranian because I think of a pomegranate!

Thank you for bringing all your dogs to see me and all the other children. It makes me really happy. The lady behind the desk in the lobby, Christine, always rings me up to tell me when the dogs are here. So I only miss them when I am at the hospital.

I had to leave my puppy behind, at home in England, with my Granny. I miss England but I try not to think about it. The dogs make me forget about it and that makes me feel happy. Thank you and your dogs.

Love,

George

The dogs are part of the family at the House. They are invited to every event, every chapel service, every Mass—everything that happens at the House happens with a dog in attendance. Dogs have been there for visits from the Archbishop, baptisms, prayer services, weddings, and, sadly, memorial services. They have probably eaten everything that has been catered in for those events, because the kids won't let them go away hungry.

The dogs dress up on Halloween, accompanying the kids in their costumes. Angel once rode around the entire block in a toy car pedaled by Ashlynn without ever moving from the passenger seat. Teigh appeared at the House on Halloween as Batman and Superman and as Santa at Christmas.

The dogs are always invited to the annual volunteer appreciation dinner at the New York Athletic Club and recognized for their work. For their part in establishing the program, Teigh and Belle represented all of the therapy dogs and were honored on stage at the Waldorf Astoria, site of the annual Ronald McDonald House Gala that raises millions of dollars for the House every year.

If something is happening at or for the House, you can be certain that there will be therapy dog teams there, representing the program. This happens for a couple of reasons. First, the dogs can help set the mood and can help get families and kids to attend and be part of the event—having the dogs can be a draw for them. Once people are there, the dogs can help them relax and feel good about being there.

Second, the therapy dog teams are part of the House family—volunteers that are appreciated just as much as all of the other volunteers. I have always been impressed by how the staff treats and recognizes its volunteers. That's part of why there is a waiting list to volunteer there, and why volunteers stay for years.

The following statement is from the House's website (
www.rmh-newyork.org
):

Ronald McDonald House of New York was created by volunteers and continues to rely on volunteers to enhance its services and programs. Your warm and caring presence as a volunteer has a positive impact on the life of a child and families who need to live at the House while undergoing cancer treatment at a local hospital.

One summer Saturday night, Cheri and I had been out to dinner in the neighborhood with Teigh and Belle at a sidewalk café where the dogs could be part of the evening. While we were there, Cheri got a call to tell her that one of her kids had passed away at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. It was quite late, about 11 p.m., but we had to go by the House so she could make some calls and see what she could do to help the family.

We all walked into the empty lobby of the House. Cheri went back to her office, and I sat down in one of the lobby chairs with Teigh and Belle. We were the only ones in the lobby other than the night security guy, so we sat down and relaxed, waiting for Cheri to finish up.

Within about ten minutes, we had six young male residents—patients and siblings—join us in the lobby to hang out with Teigh and Belle. It was like some kind of phone chain had happened: “dogs in the House, pass it on.”

There was not a parent in sight, and the kids technically are supposed to have an adult with them at all times, but it was a great moment. I took a picture of all of them with Teigh and Belle, and I called it “Bad Boys of the Ronald McDonald House.” It reminded me of that public service ad: “It's 11 o'clock, do you know where your children are?”

It is a home away from home, after all.

Remember the “pay attention” admonition from earlier in the book? I had a chance to find out what I was learning from the dogs with one of my kids at the House. A young girl named Eden was in town from California and had immediately checked into Memorial Sloan-Kettering for some tests. Cheri had met the family, and they had talked about dogs and the dog show together.
Eden asked Cheri to invite me to MSK to visit with her.

Eden was in the pediatrics unit at MSK, and dogs were not allowed there. Cheri assured me, “That's OK. They just want to talk about dogs. Bring some pictures, books, and a DVD, and they will keep you going for a while.”

So off I went. I felt like I was missing something when I walked in the door—I kept looking down for the end of the leash. But we had a great visit, talking about Pugs for quite a while because Eden wanted to get one once she got healthy. I was there for over an hour with Eden and her mother, both of them sweethearts battling for Eden's survival.

I think that the visit worked out so well because I kept thinking, “What would Teigh and Belle do?” I thought about those wristbands that many people wear with “WWJD” printed on them, standing for “What Would Jesus Do?” Not to compare the dogs to Jesus, of course, but for this, my dogs were my inspiration.

I'm glad that I‘ve been paying attention to them because it helped me help Eden.

Eventually, Eden got out of the hospital and came over to the House, where she got to spend up-close-and-personal time with Teigh and Belle.

In the moment.

I remind myself of this constantly. I know which children are facing the toughest battles at the time; I can see the difference in them physically from week to week. I have seen kids on a Tuesday night and attended their memorial services on Friday.

These are very special kids. They smile through unimaginable pain. Their courage and their worldliness are amazing.

“How do you do it?” I hear this a lot. Not as much as Cheri hears it, but just about any time I share a story with someone about our visits. “Isn't it tough?”

Yes, it is tough. But it's not as tough on me as it is on the kids or the parents.

I am there for them with Teigh or Belle or Angel or Grace—there to provide some respite in their battle, there to lend some kind of normalcy to their frantic lives. But I am just the guy on the end of the leash. It's the dogs that are doing the work. If you ask Richard, who brings Tucker; Gay, who brings Mr. Gruffyd Babayan; Barbara, who brings Lille; Caroline, who brings Beau; Maria, who brings Ella; Nicole, who brings Lucy; Kristina, who brings Lilly; or any of the others, they will all give the same answer. We aren't doing it for ourselves.

I am biased, of course, but Ronald McDonald House is a wonderful place to be a volunteer. A wonderful, heartwarming, heartbreaking place, where doing something good for someone in need happens in the moment, one moment at a time.

Champion Champions

I
n January of 1990, Westminster Kennel Club President Chet Collier asked me if I would be interested in doing the television commentary for the world's greatest dog show (my words) coming up in February. One of my Afghan Hounds was coming off a great year in the show ring, so I had met Chet on several occasions around the country at shows. He told me that they were looking for a new color commentator for the telecast, and someone had thrown my name into the mix because I had previously worked in PR for the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers as well as for ABC Sports as a publicist for
Monday Night Football.

I had been in the right place at the right time—several times. I was working with the Broncos when they went to their first Super Bowl ever; I was working with the 49ers when they traded for O.J. Simpson; and
Monday Night Football
with Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, and Frank Gifford was already a huge part of the American sports culture when I started working with ABC Sports. I had been interviewed on camera a few times in those
jobs, but I had never been a host or the “talent.”

It really helped that I had been around the media madness that had surrounded the Broncos, O.J., and the
Monday Night
guys, and while all of that was not quite the same as standing in front of the camera, I accepted Chet's invitation to audition for Westminster. I was living in Seattle at the time, so he flew me to Boston, where he had a television production company. We did an audition tape with Chet playing the host to my color commentator, and we did our make-believe commentary over the tape of the Hound Group from the previous year's Westminster show.

He called the next day and offered me the job. I remember thinking to myself that this might be fun and that maybe I could make it last a couple of years.

Chet was the genius behind the television success of Westminster, thanks to his understanding of the world of television and the world of dog shows. Over the next few weeks, Chet and I talked about the show. I wanted his perspective, of course, and I felt the pressure of representing Westminster and our world of purebred dogs and dog shows to the general public, as Westminster was the show that everyone watched. I wanted Chet to be happy with my approach and my work.

Chet would often say, “It's important to remember that 99 percent of our television audience has never been to a dog show and probably will never go to a dog show.” He also was resolute about Westminster's role in promoting and protecting the purebred dog in particular and responsible dog ownership in general, and why not? Westminster Kennel Club is, after all, the oldest organization in America dedicated to the sport of purebred dogs.