'Catholic dogs' bring cheer to elderly, ill

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 21, 2005 by Patricia Lefevere

Sue Clark's pet ministry started serendipitously in an Oshkosh, Wis., restaurant five years ago. Clark, a traveling sales representative at the time, overheard an elderly woman tell her son how much she missed the family dog.

When the son asked his mother whether she was ready to return to the nursing home, Clark felt a tremendous urge to make the woman smile. And sitting next to Clark in the booth were her pet Chihuahua Petita and the newborn pups from Petita's first litter.

Clark approached the woman and placed the bag of puppies gently on her lap. "She just beamed," Clark recalled. When Clark was in the area, she visited the woman again.

"It all started so spontaneously," Clark said. "If I was early for an appointment in Wisconsin or southern Minnesota"--the area in which she sold clothing and jewelry for 20 years--"I'd check out the nursing home and care facilities in the area and stop in with the dogs."

By now a few hundred seniors and a number of handicapped persons have met Petita, age 7, her daughter Pansy, age 5, and the newest member of her "Angels 3" trio, son Pongo, age 3. Clark takes the threesome everywhere. Increasingly that means the pets go to hospitals, nursing homes, memory care units, senior centers and rehab facilities.

She also does home visits to adults and children. Since her husband died in 2003 and her clothing firm folded, Clark and her mother have moved to the Twin Cities, where she has a daughter and a granddaughter.

Last year she brought her love of people and pets to Visiting Angels, a national agency, serving seniors who want to live independently in their own homes, but need help. As a personal care attendant, Clark spends most mornings helping seniors bathe and dress, preparing meals, doing light housekeeping and driving clients to doctors' offices or the hairdresser. She also reads to those who can't see.

Of course Angels 3 are never far away and often lift the spirits of a client who is disabled, ill or lonely, she said. Recently the dogs attended a funeral of one of Clark's clients in a Presbyterian church. The client's daughter said her mother was so taken with the dogs she requested they be at her funeral.

The pets are also popular with Jewish residents at a nursing home in St. Louis Park, Minn., where--wearing bandanas decorated with the Star of David--they helped seniors celebrate Hanukkah.

Despite their cross-denominational ministry, Clark insists: "These are Catholic dogs." And she has two priests who will vouch for their peaceful presence in the pew every Sunday. Most recently they've become members of St. Joseph's Parish in Hopkins, Minn., where Clark now lives.

The only thing that's not Catholic about them is that Petita--mother of 11 and grandmother of nine--is "not monogamous." The sires of her litters have been Contra Billy the Third, who produced Pongo and Tank, a longhaired Chihuahua who resembled a tank and fathered Pansy.

The dogs do more than attend the annual St. Francis Day blessing of the animals. They remain quiet in their mesh, see-through basket throughout the entire liturgy--during the homily "and even when I sing," said Clark, a member of St. Joseph's choir.

After Mass they entertain parishioners outside the church, especially Pongo, whom Clark maintains has musical talent. While Clark was singing one day, she discovered the puppy would try to sing along or at least carry a tune in the same key that Clark had just sung. With a few rehearsals, Pongo was roadworthy.

One of the pets' favorite visiting venues is at Epiphany Community in Coon Rapids, Minn. The 50 assisted living and 14 memory care units opened just over four years ago, alongside 107 apartments in The Pines independent living quarters for seniors.

The entire complex is an outgrowth of the Church of the Epiphany, which Fr. Bernard Reiser founded in 1964 after being asked by the archbishop to acquire land to start a new church in a growing suburb northwest of Minneapolis. Reiser purchased a 72-acre farm that has spawned a parish serving 4,500 families. Besides the housing units, the property supports a school, a parish cemetery and a garden and grotto area, shaped like a rosary and devoted to Mary.

Clark talks of Reiser like a favorite uncle. "He baptized me in 1949, christened my twins in 1969 and my granddaughter in 1989." She and Reiser and the dogs meet in the lobby of Epiphany Assisted Living.

Reiser laughs when reminded of the baptisms. Although priests of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese are not expected to work past age 70, Reiser asked to head a smaller parish after 40 years at Epiphany. He now pastors St. Nicholas in New Market with 350 families, but maintains an apartment in The Pines. When he left for his new assignment in August, Epiphany's parishioners surprised him with a new car--so that he could safely return whenever he likes, said one parish volunteer.

Reiser's motto, "Keep the faith burning, carry on," and his dynamism spread across the lobby. Soon the lounge was full of seniors, who greeted the priest and the pets. "God's gift to me is my health," Reiser told NCR. "If you like what you do, you keep at it," he said, noting this is his 55th year of priesthood and the job satisfaction has been so great, he's never regretted a day since ordination.