Finn the Therapy Dog, who holds court in the medical library on most Fridays, getting attention and TLC from people passing by, made his debut on national television this morning.
Finn appeared on The Today Show, in a segment about the Canine Cognition Center at Yale, which is directed by Laurie Santos, PhD. The center studies how dogs think and asks such questions as whether dogs have a moral sense. Finn, who’s participating in the study, was selected as one of three “spokesdogs” for the segment. The segment showed Finn and two other dogs taking tests to determine whether they trust their owners and can distinguish between “good” and “bad” puppets.
Finn’s owner, Krista Knudson, a nurse practitioner who’s pursuing a PhD at the School of Nursing, enrolled Finn in the center’s research project a few months ago. When NBC called the center, they suggested Finn. “They knew that Finn was interactive but doesn’t get too excited, so they invited him to be the spokesdog,” Knudson said. “His temperament lent itself to being the one that got showcased.”
A few days earlier Finn made an anonymous appearance in an article in The New York Times. Pranay Sinha, MD, a first-year resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital, wrote “Why Do Doctors Commit Suicide?” which explored the pressures faced by recently graduated doctors as they took on clinical responsibilities for the first time. His residency program, Sinha wrote, offers several ways to relieve the stress, including the services of unnamed therapy dogs.
Knudson approached library officials last year about bringing Finn on campus as a therapy dog, to help people relieve stress by spending some time with him. Since then he has spent two hours every Friday in the library lobby, letting students, faculty, staff, and visitors pet him. Some are passing by, while others make a point of coming to see him.