Paws for Celebration: Elizabethtown College's therapy dog celebrates a decade of work

While most Etown students attend the college for four years, this four legged friend just passed the 10 year mark. And he goes by just one name: Truman. .

During the summer of 2014, Director of Student Media Andy Williams and his wife, took in an eight week old multi-generational labradoodle, with the intent of raising him to be a service dog, as they had done with their previous six dogs.

As a part of his training process, it was important to have Truman socialize with different groups and so Williams would bring him along to campus.

“It allowed him to be around different sights, sounds and smells, and not be afraid of them,” Williams said.

But what Williams and his wife discovered in the training process for Truman to become a service dog, was that because of his breed, he had a high prey drive which caused him to react to quick motions such as kids or squirrels.

In good conscience this was something Williams and his wife couldn't say that Truman may never react to again, and so they made the decision to shift from training him to be a service dog to a therapy dog.

“Because of all of his service dog training the therapy dog program was a piece of cake for him,” Williams said. “There’s a lot of basic obedience stuff that your dog has to go through to become a therapy dog, and he was overtrained for it.”

After roughly a year and a half of training Truamn became certified. And during this training process the campus community began to recognize him, but not by his official name.

“That's the person with the dog,” Williams said.

For the first several years Truman came to campus this is how he was known, until the school bookstore posted a photo of Truman to their instagram page.

“When my daughter was going to school here she had bought a knit hat, and she put it on Truman and we took a picture of that,” Williams said. “We sent it to the bookstore manager because we thought it was kind of funny and they put it on their socials and it did really well.”

This success led Truman to become a frequent model for the school stores newest merch items, and led him to create his own Instagram page in 2017, @trumanthetherapydooddle.

Truman also became the face of many new school store items including a calendar, t-shirts, stickers, and plushies made to look like him.

He went from being known as, that's the person with the dog, to Truman.

Now, even after 10 years Truman still makes his way to campus, at least once a week, and to find him just look for Williams, and Truman is just a few steps behind because whatever Wiliams does Truman tags along.

A typical day for Truman starts by making his rounds around the Steinman Center, and then squeezing in some more Z’s in Williams office, as he works.

With Williams role on campus he is often in and out of classrooms and the Student Media Center, creating a special bond for Communication students to Truman.

“Truman is our own personal communications dog,” senior Digital Media Production major, Jessica Piergallini said. “Getting to see him so often is a perk of the program.”

But Truman is sure to make rounds on campus for all students to get some pets in, so at noon he and Williams make their way over to the Blue Bean to do just that.

“I love giving him pup-cups and seeing his smiling face around campus,” junior Julia Yudichak said. “Whenever I am having a stressful day or just need a little pick-me-up Truman is always there to cheer me up.”

In addition to weekday visits, Truman also has been attending admissions weekend events since he was a pup. For prospective students, who may have a dog or pet at home, seeing that the campus has its own therapy dog can help in providing a sense of comfort, that Etown can be their home away from home.

And that comfort goes beyond just students past and present, but to their families.

“He sat at commencement with a family whose dad has terrible PTSD and didn’t think he could watch his daughter graduate and because Truman sat with him the whole time and he was able to pet Truman the whole time, he watched his daughter graduate,” Williams said.

Beyond the campus, Truman is a part of the Keystone Pet Enhanced Therapy Service (K-Pets), whose mission is to “promote well-being by sharing the power of human/animal interaction’. This program allows organizations to request for K-Pets to come to them, and provide their pet therapy services.

“It amazes me that sometimes it's just 10 seconds and you see the difference it makes for somebody,” Williams said. “It catches me because I’m with him all the time but to see what it he does for other people''

With Truman passing this new milestone the question that stands is: will he ever earn his degree?