Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Pen Paws program connects patients with their service dogs

Going to the hospital can cause anxiety for a lot of people, and it can be especially nerve-wracking for kids.

That's why Children's Healthcare of Atlanta launched its Canine for Kids program.

The program is expanding so that patients can stay connected to their favorite service dog even when they're not around through a Pen Paws program.

Reggie is one of more than a dozen in the furry fleet of trained service pups that are considered full-time employees at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. They even have their own badges.

For the past 13 years, Reggie and his fellow pups have made fast friends and provided comfort to hundreds of patients at the hospital.

Children's started the program back in 2009 to help patients cope, heal, and achieve treatment goals while at the hospital.

"Whatever they're doing as part of their jobs - the dogs are doing alongside of them," Canines for Kids Senior Coordinator Kara Klein said. "Their role is to help a patient through a procedure or if they're having a test done or an MRI to show them what that might be like by using one of our facility dogs. We've had our dogs ride a CT scanner before to show our patients, hey if Reggie can do it, you can do it too."

Klein says the first-of-its-kind program is thriving.

In fact, it's part of the reason an extension of the program launched about a month ago.

"Because our dogs become such a critical part of a hospital stay, often times a patient asks to look for one of our dogs or see one of our dogs, but there are times when our dogs just might not be available," she said.

That's how the simple idea of becoming pen pals with a patient's favorite facility pup was born.

The Pen Paws program allows parents to exchange letters and cards of support with their furry caregivers in times when they may not be able to see their favorite facility dog.

Klein says it can also motivate patients to participate in tasks like physical and occupational therapy.

"If your goal is to have your patient walk, here is a way to do this - have your patient walk and deliver the letter down to the mailbox," she says. "Or if a patient is working on writing skills after they've had trauma to that side of their body - what if they wrote a letter to Reggie, Aston, or Lotus or one of our dogs and dropped that letter in the mailbox?"

It's another avenue to help patients, their families, and even hospital staff during some of life's most stressful moments.

"When a dog walks into a room - you see a huge smile on a patient's face. We've heard from so many parents that say 'I haven't seen my child smile in weeks. This is the first time I've seen my child smile when this dog walks into that room'" Klein says.

Because Canines for Kids is so successful, they have a goal of adding two dogs to the hospital staff every year.

The program is funded solely from donations.

If you'd like to support Canines for Kids, you can learn more at the program's page on Children's Healthcare of Atlanta website.