THE HEALING PACK INITIATIVE
Sometimes Healing Begins With Having Someone Else to Care About.
A dog doesn't ask where you've been or define you by the worst day of your life. Sometimes a dog simply needs you to show up.
The Healing Pack Initiative is being developed to create meaningful, appropriately structured opportunities for people referred through participating recovery organizations and community partners to engage with rescued dogs.
Two lives moving forward can sometimes help one another along the way.
Why Dogs?
Dogs bring us into the present. They need a walk, food, attention, patience, consistency and care. For someone rebuilding structure and connection in their life, caring for another living being can make responsibility tangible.
Purpose, Routine & Connection
Participants aren't simply coming to receive something. They have something to give: time, attention, effort, compassion, consistency and presence.
The Relationship Goes Both Ways
Appropriate interaction may provide rescued dogs with companionship, walks, enrichment, play, calm human presence, training practice, grooming and individual attention. The person contributes to the dog's day; the dog may create opportunities for connection, routine, responsibility, companionship or purpose.
The relationship should have value on both ends of the leash.
What the Experience May Look Like
- Walking a dog
- Preparing enrichment
- Playing
- Brushing
- Practicing simple training activities
- Learning about canine communication
- Appropriate dog-care activities
- Sitting quietly with a dog
Participate. Contribute. Connect.
Two Different Journeys
The circumstances of a rescued dog and a person rebuilding their life are not the same and should not be equated. But there can be something meaningful about two lives moving forward in the same place.
What Rescuing the Rescuers™ Means Here
It does not mean that a dog is responsible for fixing a person or that a participant is there to fix a dog. It means a person can help a dog while discovering that the relationship gives something back.
Who It Is For
The initiative is being developed for appropriate participants referred through participating recovery organizations and related community partners.
What It Is and Is Not
The Healing Pack Initiative is a dog-centered community-engagement program. It is not detoxification, medical treatment, psychotherapy, mental-health treatment or substance-use-disorder treatment, and it is not a substitute for professional care.
Where second chances meet.