Denise Goolsby

The Desert Sun

Smiles spread across the faces of students in Noel Gamel's special education class at Cathedral City High School when three collies — Amos, Lana and Rain — sauntered into classroom 313 on Friday.

Following on the dogs' heels was Michael Neu, who operates K-9 Friendly Visitors, a nonprofit group that provides services to the deaf, hard of hearing, disabled and special needs students. His therapy dogs visit local schools, including Cathedral City High School and Katherine Finchy Elementary School in Palm Springs. For three years now, the dogs have been helping students to learn new skills and feel more connected with the world around them.

The students in Gamel's adult transition program class range in age from 18 to 22 The class gives young adults who are unable to do the coursework required for a diploma the opportunity to continue to develop their life skills.

Neu's therapy dogs help fulfill that mission.

Bespectacled Misha Bianco, 21, leaned forward on his desk, beaming at the trio of canines. Misha, who was wearing a Navy blue Cathedral City Fire Department T-shirt, was among the students who worked with the dogs the previous school year.

When Neu reintroduced the dogs to the class, he said, "Misha, can you remember the dog's names?"

Misha correctly rattled off their names – even though it had been many months since he'd interacted with the pooches.

Recall of information is among the many skills Neu helps instill in the special needs kids he visits.

"We are not just dogs visiting organizations," Neu said. "We work hard with our partners to create meaningful lesson plans and programs, so the dogs become the catalyst for the students' growth."

The dogs have five certificates: They're registered therapy dogs, deaf and hard-of-hearing dogs, K-9 Good Citizenship dogs, they've had temperaments training, and are pedigreed.

Collies, he said, are smart and gentle and are interact beautifully with the students.

Neu threw out a couple of other questions to the class.

"Who's the boy dog?"

"Amos!" came a voice at the end of the table.

"That's right, Bobby – good job!" Neu said.

"How do dogs wake you?" Neu asked

"They lick you," one of the students said, while Misha asked if he could see the dog wake him up.

"Absolutely!" Neu said.

Misha went to "sleep" on the floor.

"Amos, go wake Misha up," Neu said, and the short-haired collie licked Misha gently on the cheek.

"Let's wake up, let's go to school," Neu said.

Misha and the class laughed.

'I wanted to do something'

Neu and his wife Karen Meyer recently moved to the desert from Chicago.

Meyer, who is profoundly deaf, is a long-time advocate for the disabled and in 1994, was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the vice chairperson of the President's Committee on Employment for People with Disabilities.

She worked for nearly 25 years as a reporter for ABC 7 in Chicago, beginning in 1991.

Neu, whose background is in education and psychology, ran an advertising agency in Chicago for 35 years.

"I had bypass surgery and retired to the desert to recover, and as I finally started to get better, I thought 'What am I going to do?'" he said. "I wanted to do something — to meet a need that was unmet in the Coachella Valley."

Neu decided to combine his expertise and his wife's background in disabilities and pulled together a group that formed K-9 Friendly Visitors to provide "animal assisted therapy plus," for severely disabled individuals.

"What is it that special needs people need?," he asked. "What they need —which is what everybody needs —is self-esteem." We want to "get them to feel better about themselves."

Neu started working with the valley's special needs students about three years ago.

"We do animal-centric lesson plans, we do animal-centric field trips — students come to my house and make dog cookies, we were at Sunnylands last week," he said.

Meeting Gamel was a game-changer.

"We knew when we met, it was destiny," Gamel said. "He said he'd been looking for a classroom teacher for a year ... and this one particular day we bumped into each other and I had some students with me and he told me his story and in about 30 seconds I said, 'you don't have to look any further, you found yourself a teacher."

Gamel said Neu came around at just the right time.

"The funding issues that California faces have really depleted our resources, so the fact that Michael's organization has evolved and is supported by different agencies in the area —there's hope," she said.

She said the interaction with Neu's service dogs have had a profound impact on the special needs students — there are about 65 to 70 in the program, ranging in age from 14 to 22 — at Cathedral City High School.

Neu starts out by teaching the students about the dogs, how to groom, feed and water them, then shows them how to walk the dogs on their leashes around the classroom. Later, they start walking the dogs outside.

"For a lot of our students, they might be very hesitant to be around dogs and they just gradually transform," Gamel said. "When they start taking on the role of grooming the dogs they increase in their confidence, self esteem. We practice walking the dogs — one boy, who was very quiet, he not only took one dog, but he took two dogs. He went from being humped over to standing erect, you can tell he was really proud of his accomplishment, and this was a student I had never heard speak other than say, 'ya ya' for yes.

Then he started saying the dogs' names.

"The first time I heard him speak, I about fell out of my chair," Gamel said. "I asked my staff, did you hear that? Sure enough. Shortly after, he spoke some more, he'd say, 'I love you,' it was really garbled … but it was a really dramatic change."

The students are going on field trips and are interacting in real-world situations – which has boosted the young people's confidence.

"We have a community-based program, which means we access the community for instruction — we go to work sites, there's a leisure component, we go shopping, we go to lunch at Subway."

When the students go up to the counter to order, they walk through the line with one of the service dogs.

"Having a companion by their side helps them be a little more independent," Gamel said.

As part of the lesson plan, the students learned the difference between a medical doctor for humans and a veterinarian for the dogs.

The students have gone on a field trip to a vet clinic, where a veterinarian gave them a tour, showed them instruments and X-rays, listened to the dogs' heart and looked in their ears – a really hands on experience, Gamel said.

For the past two years, the special needs students have been volunteering at the Palm Springs Animal Shelter.

Gamel sat at the back of the class on Friday and watched Neu worked his magic.

"He started with me, and as we got the ball rolling other teachers got involved," she said. "He's really inspirational ... he's such a giving person."

K-9 Friendly Visitors

To learn more, call (312) 961-7961 or visit K-9friendlyvisitors.org