Brookfield counseling center adds new staff member — a pup trained to provide comfort to clients
BROOKFIELD — The Christian Counseling Center of Greater Danbury has welcomed a furry addition to its staff — a pup named Apricot.
The almost-2-year-old golden retriever hails from Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities — a Winsted-based nonprofit, also known as ECAD, that breeds and trains dogs to assist people with disabilities and other needs.
Joined by Christian Counseling Center staff members Chris Barrett and Glenn Johnson, Apricot graduated as a trained facility dog from ECAD on Wednesday.
With Barrett as her primary handler, Apricot will join fellow facility dog, 5-year-old Olympic, in providing comfort to people in need at the Brookfield-based counseling center.
Located on Old New Milford Road, the Christian Counseling Center is a private, nonprofit, interdenominational organization that offers professional counseling services to people in the Danbury area.
Olympic — also known as “Ollie” — has been with the center since December 2018, and is also a golden retriever from ECAD.
“Ollie has been doing some work with military members, as well as sitting in on individual sessions,” said Barrett, who facilitates grief support groups at the Christian Counseling Center. “Apricot will do some individual session work as well, and also sit in on some of the groups I run.”
Barrett said Apricot and Olympic will also provide out-of-facility counseling services.
“Organizations like nursing homes and schools have requested the dogs to visit for the purpose of helping people,” he said. “As COVID restrictions lift more, we’ll be able to start doing that again.”
Olympic’s growing popularity led the Christian Counseling Center to seek a second dog from ECAD.
“There was starting to be a high demand,” Barrett said. “We wanted to have a second dog, so we reached out.”
He said acquiring a dog from ECAD is a lengthy process — one that involves fundraising, getting on a waiting list and handler training.
“You have to be certified as a handler in order to have the dogs, and there’s a training process that happens at the end of the dog’s training,” said Barrett, who completed a handler training program at ECAD.
“We have to be trained to be able to do all the commands properly and consistently so that the dogs can be as good as they can be when they’re at work,” he said.
Another part of the process is finding a good fit, according to Barrett, who said he and Johnson “tried out a few dogs” before Apricot.
Unlike therapy dogs, facility dogs like Apricot and Olympic are trained to serve “one to many people,” said Barrett.
“Even though I’m a handler for Apricot, she’s going to service many people,” he said. “Their training is less about learning commands required to help somebody in a wheelchair or push automatic door openers … and more about teaching the human how to access the training the dog has gotten so that they can do life together.”
Barrett said he’s excited to have Apricot on board and looks forward to working with her to help those seeking assistance through the Christian Counseling Center.
