Air Force Staff Sgt. James Kennedy pets Maria, a theraphy canine, on the USO on Yokota Air Base, Japan, Jan. 25, 2024. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A furry good friend has been lifting spirits each week on the home of U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo.
Maria, an 8-year-old lab terrier combine and a rescue canine, is the primary licensed remedy canine at a USO in Japan, Josephine Grenier, USO Yokota’s operations specialist, informed Stars and Stripes on Jan. 18.
“Maria’s job is to come in and volunteer her time to boost the morale of our Yokota community,” she stated.
As a remedy canine, Maria spends 5-7 p.m. every Thursday at USO in Yokota’s Yujo Community Center. Visitors might pet and play with Maria and treats are welcome, too.
Maria, who began visiting the USO in August, attracts as much as 15 individuals per go to, Grenier stated.
“When you’re overseas, for at least single airmen, we’re not really allowed to have dogs, cats or pets with us in our dorms,” Staff Sgt. James Kennedy, a videographer for American Forces Network Tokyo, stated on the USO on Thursday. “So, for someone to bring their pet and let us interact and play with is a pretty big morale boost for me.”
Maria’s human, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Kristen Yarber, a radio DJ and video broadcaster for AFN, adopted her in 2017.
Maria was a “satos” – Puerto Rican slang for a avenue canine –Yarber lately informed Stars and Stripes. She survived two main hurricanes that hit the island in 2017. One of the storms, Hurricane Maria, is how the canine acquired her title.
Pregnant and homeless, Maria was rescued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which took her to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Norfolk, Va., the place Maria gave beginning, and her puppies have been quickly adopted.
Maria remained within the shelter, undesirable, underweight, anemic and affected by post-traumatic stress dysfunction, Yarber stated.
“She was in like a glass box when I saw her for the first time,” she stated. “They brought her out and she jumped on me, and they were like, she never does that. I told them that I had been deployed as providing humanitarian assistance to those islands and they were like, ‘This has to be your dog.’”
It was October, Dog Adoption Month, and Yarber took Maria home for $25.
“I realized that when I was around her my anxiety was so low, any time I saw her I just got really happy,” she stated. “So, I decided to get her registered as a therapy dog in 2020.”
A remedy canine doesn’t require particular coaching like a service canine and is typically confused with emotional assist animals.
Therapy dogs present assist to different individuals, whereas an emotional assist animal offers assist to its proprietor, in accordance with servicedogcertifications.org, an unofficial web site the place homeowners can register their dogs.
The easy act of petting animals releases an automated rest response, in accordance with the University of California of Los Angles Health web site.
Maria, a remedy canine, visits the USO at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Jan. 18, 2024. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
Petting promotes psychological well being by stimulating the discharge of serotonin, prolactin and oxytocin, hormones that may play a component in elevating moods, the web site states. It additionally lowers anxiousness and helps individuals chill out, offering consolation and decreasing loneliness.
For bodily well being, the act lowers blood stress, improves cardiovascular well being and diminishes general bodily ache, in accordance with the positioning.
Maria seems to hit all these packing containers for her admirers.
“She is such a sweet dog, and she loves getting all the pets she can get,” Kennedy stated. “She’s a great dog and I want to keep coming back so I can say hello to her.”
