Therapy dogs create space for MSU students to come together after trauma

Maeve O'Hare, 20, was afraid Friday afternoon, but she was also incredibly brave.

She didn't want to leave her home to venture to Michigan State University's main library. Monday's shooting happened about a mile from her off-campus housing. It left three students dead and five seriously injured and O'Hare and others deeply traumatized.

"We were listening to the scanners and we thought there were multiple shooters," O'Hare told the Free Press. "We thought they were all over the place. We didn’t know where was safe, nowhere felt safe."

The memory of that horror is raw, but O'Hare heard there were dogs coming Friday. She wanted to pet them and, more importantly, she needed comfort and community.

"I can’t say that walking into this building that there was no fear in my body," O'Hare, a junior, said. "It’s riveting through me. But if I can do it, and my fellow students can do it, we can build a space where it can feel better and feel lighter."

The library Friday afternoon was all but empty, except for a buzz of giggles and laughter coming from the Green Room on the fourth floor. There, O'Hare and several dozen other MSU students and faculty congregated, sitting in circles on the floor. In the middle of each circle were Nellie, a 9-year-old golden retriever who loves a belly rub; Royal, a 7-year-old cane corso, who loves to drool and lean on people; Biff, a 7-year-old female who's always chill; Lupin, a 4-year-old rescue whose favorite toy is his shark, and Frankie, an 8-year-old Rottweiler who loves to kiss people — to name a few. All certified therapy dogs.

Then there were all the students, petting the dogs, smiling and laughing together. It is a stark contrast from the tears that flowed during Wednesday night's solemn vigil.

"It’s the community here," said Dillon Sharp, a junior. "A lot of us weren’t directly impacted by (the shooting), but it has a bigger impact than you think. The healing process is long, but we can see it today. It’s always nice to pet a dog, of course, but seeing all the people come out here and all the smiles — I love to see it.”

The library will not be a scary place

Around 8:30 Monday night, a man wearing a cap, a mask and a backpack entered Berkey Hall and the MSU Union and started shooting, killing three MSU students: Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser and Alexandria Verner. He also wounded five others. The alleged gunman was 43-year-old Anthony McRae, who police say fatally shot himself in a later encounter.

During the shooting and the hours after when police searched for the gunman, the library transformed into a shelter, said Holly Flynn, the head of Outreach and Engagement at MSU libraries. Flynn said it is part of the reason she organized the dogs.

“Students were sheltering in here, they had tipped over tables and created a barricade ... so the library was kind of a mess," Flynn said. "We had to clean it up on Wednesday to get rid of the barricades. So we wanted to welcome people back to the library as not a scary place.”

Flynn contacted the groups the library has worked with for years to bring comfort dogs during final exam week to help students relax. About 10 dogs came from the following groups: Therapy Dogs International, Love on a Leash and Buddy’s PALS, as well as other volunteers. There were initially going to be more dogs, but some were routed to Sparrow Hospital, where five injured students remain.

The dogs’ four-hour visit on Friday is the first of what will be a daily event at the library for the next two weeks, Flynn said. She wants the dogs there because "We have lots of instruction rooms here at the library and some of the classes from Berkey Hall will be meeting here next week. We want to welcome them back and create a quiet and happy place for them.”

More:Professor who faced Michigan State gunman speaks out

Flynn has worked for MSU for 20 years, so the students and faculty are like a family to her, she said. And like O'Hare, she struggles to return to normal. “I want to help, but I also want to stay in bed.”

'I'm grateful for that'

Lupin Butternut is a Plott Hound mix rescued by Senta Goertler from Michigan Humane. The dog has been doing therapy work for only a few months, but he was at Wednesday night's vigil. On Friday, he was holding court at the library when a young man shyly approached for a chance to pet him. The man hesitated, and Goertler said, "Go ahead, you can pet him, he's here for everyone," Goertler said.

"I'm grateful for that," the young man said, gave the dog a stroke and then quietly wandered off.

That's how it is. Some stay only a few minutes and leave. Others stay hours, the dog handlers said. When you ask a dog's owner, such as Carol Ohlrogge, what the dog does to help people in trauma, the answer can be simply: "Watch the people's faces."

"Nellie knows what the people feel. She likes people. She knows when I'm having a hard time," Ohlrogge said of her golden retriever. "I can't know for sure, but look at their faces and then look at the faces at the vigil."

It takes about two years for a dog to become a certified therapy dog, said Gayle Yarick, who brought her smooth collie, Biff, to the MSU library. Biff is always calm and helps to "lower people's blood pressure," Yarick said. Usually, the two are at Sparrow Hospital working with the staff during stressful events such as during COVID-19 when the hospital was full of pandemic patients. But Friday, she wanted Biff to be at the library for the students.

Frankie, a Rottweiler who has been a therapy dog for six years, sat pressed against his owner, Angela Brown, on Monday night as she listened to the scanner belch out confusing details of the shootings. Frankie comforted a frightened Brown then, as she was doing for the traumatized students Friday.

"Dogs are very good at sensing your emotions," said Ayalla Ruvio, an associate professor of marketing at MSU, who has six cane corso dogs. "My dogs knew I was stressing out on Monday night and they all crowded around me. They feel you. There is an immense amount of comfort you get with one stroke of a dog."

Ruvio brought her dog, Royal, to the event Friday. The 7-year-old cane corso is not only a therapy dog, he is the No. 1 lifetime ranked owner-handled cane corso in the county and he won Select Dog twice at the famed Westminster Dog Show.

The dogs create the space to come together

Ruvio said Royal makes people smile and smiling produces dopamine in the brain, which makes a person feel happier.

That's how Morgan Smith said she felt as she stroked Nellie's ears.

“I don’t have a dog, so I really enjoy the time I do get to spend with a dog," said Smith, a junior. "It’s kind of nice to spend time with other people, too, who experienced the same thing that you did and while doing something that brings people together. It kind of takes your mind off things.”

As O'Hare moved through the room petting the dogs, she started talking to more people, opening up and realizing she was "living through the fear," not letting it conquer her.

"I’ll never look at certain things the same. It’s shifted perspective," O'Hare said of the shootings. ”There’s always going to be something in the back of my head now and working through that fear and pushing myself to be out and encouraging people to come into spaces. It’s obviously a traumatic thing."

And returning to normal is a long way off, they said.

"Normal is a stretch, I don’t think we’ll go back to normal any time soon," O'Hare said. "But I think the dogs started a great conversation space for us to come around together.”

More:Michigan State University faculty up all night in disbelief after shooting

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MSU student survivors overcome fear with help of these dogs