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Captivating places and remarkable things.

This is Living West Michigan.

♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ Everything that ♪ ♪ you say and do ♪ ♪ Show me your world ♪ ♪ Everything that ♪ ♪ you say and do ♪ ♪ you say to me ♪ ♪ Can’t get enough ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ This program is supported in part by an award from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, and is also powered by you and your dedicated support.

Thank you.

("Rest" by Basic Comfort plays) Well, if dogs could only talk, we'd have Walter in the seat because he's a somewhat star of the show.

But oh my goodness.

Here we are at StoryPoint where you are lending Walter and of course your many colleagues for some dog therapy.

West Michigan therapy dogs well known in our area 25 years.

Is this exciting for you?

It is.

It's great.

I started in 2003, so two years old.

Didn't know how far this would go and six dogs later were still going at it.

And yeah, it's just amazing to see how big we've grown, you know, from about ten programs and we're up over 100 programs that we have going on in the greater Grand Rapids area in the West Michigan area.

So dogs can't come into our group until they're year old with basic obedience commands.

They don't have to be perfect, but they have to have their basic obedience down.

So I had them in a lot of different training classes when he was real young.

It's an eight week course that they go through.

It's the sit the down, the stay come when called just basic obedience.

Basic friendliness is what we're looking for.

It's all temperament of the dog.

Typically you see a lot of Goldens, you see a lot of labs.

They're just pretty well rounded.

Dogs have pretty good personalities.

But in our group we have about 250 dogs in our group right now.

Every mixed breed rescue purebred little, big or smallest is 3 pounds.

Our biggest is 170 pounds.

So we have everything from a Great Dane down to a Yorkie.

And like I said, a lot of mixed breeds and rescues.

It's all temperament and how the dogs can handle the stress of visiting.

We get them introduced to wheelchairs and IV poles and visiting bedside and reading for the reading programs.

We teach the dogs to read a book.

It's all different ways that we use these dogs.

We will meet with some of the residents that are here that love to see all the dogs.

The residents will come out into a big group room, and the dogs get to just hang out with them and visit with them.

They might sit on a couch with them, they might lay at their feet, but it just is great for the residents.

It brings up memories of when they grew up with dogs and it gives a little break for their day.

These dogs bring a lot of happiness to a lot of people, so that's why I started it.

And I'm so passionate about it because that, you know, you just see the smiles on people's faces and how much they enjoy it.

So let's put the spotlight on the therapy.

What are they doing for us?

Okay.

So love mostly we bring in love.

We bring in happiness.

If people are lonely, if people are down and they see a dog, a wagging tail that usually brightens up most people's day and just bring them in and bring some love, get their mind off of things that might be going on.

And we're different than the you know, we don't do the assistant part of it.

We do the love part in the happy part.

Well, I became a resident here at Story Point about three and a half years ago.

You know, we met, you know, the dogs.

I've always been a dog person since I was kind of a dog whisperer, since I was even a teenage boy.

The big, mean German shepherds in our neighborhood liked me when I'd walk up and pet him.

And so I've always been a dog person, and I was just in having the aftermath of dinner and in game, this cute little dog sat right down here at my feet and acted like a puppy.

And I was in love.

And that was my first experience.

And her name was lemon.

And that was my first experience with West Michigan therapy dogs.

Dogs, by their nature, are pleasers, and they they live to make you happy, you know, and it's you can look around a lot and not find a human that's like that.

But dogs are very much that way.

So it does when you when you're being given unconditional love like that, not to enjoy it and, and just take it in and absorb it and let it do good things to you is a wonderful thing to experience.

I want to emphasize what a great team they are.

It's remarkable to me that they're all volunteers taking their time.

Some people own the dogs, some people just handle the dogs.

But it's 100% volunteer time to cheer up people like me, which is a real labor of love.

And it's a it's a gift to the world, honestly, to have a mindset like that.

And I respect it.

And I think it's very admirable that they do that.

All of us are volunteer.

So all 250 of us are volunteer.

It can take a bit, you know, to get them ready to come.

But we all are loving it and willing to do it.

The dogs are so used to getting bathes, you know, quite a bit.

And yeah, so it's there are a lot of clean and happy dogs.

And of course I ask, what does Walter get out of this besides maybe a long nap after work?

He does, but he loves it.

I just tell him I take his vest out at home and he knows we're on our way to go to work.

He's all excited, gets in the car and knows where we're going, and then he's looking for his friends because typically we visit with more than just one at a time.

We have multiple teams at the places that we go.

So he's looking for his friends and yeah, he loves it.

And then he goes home and sleeps for a while.

What’s the future of West Michigan therapy dogs?

We hope this goes on for another 25-50.

I mean, we just hope it continues.

We see the good in it.

We see how much, you know, the community loves us, loves the dogs.

Really.

It's the dogs.

It's not us.

We're on the other end of the lead.

Nobody knows me.

They know me as Walter's mom.

So which is great.

That's what it should be.

We're just the taxi driver.

And we just hope this continues on and we keep continuing to grow.

Get the support from the community we live on donations.

That is really what we do.

We try and keep the expense really low for people to come through the classes.

We don't want that to be a deterrent for anybody but donations.

You can go on our website and that's.

We have more facilities than we have dogs to fill.

So we have waiting lists for facilities that would love to have the dogs come in.

So more teams would be better to.

We'd love to have the have the dog and handler come through classes and get them out in the community.

(Nature sounds) We are inside the Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory here at the Frederik Meijer Gardens.

What makes this place so special?

It's an incredibly immersive experience for all of you that live in West Michigan.

We're used to the type of landscape plants that we see, you know, out in our yards, trees, trees that lose leaves, things like that.

In the fall in the tropical conservatory, it is tropical year round.

You can absolutely transport yourself.

It doesn't matter if there's snow on the ground or the sun is out and shining.

It is the tropics in here always.

So you're the director of horticulture here.

Can you explain to us what horticulture is?

Horticulture is the care and maintenance of plants in its simplest form.

So can you take us through a typical day, then of somebody working on the horticulture team?

Yeah.

The thing that I think that we all appreciate as horticulturists is that there is no such thing as a typical day.

Not only does it change from season to season, but each day is just they're all just slightly different.

I've been here for over 22 years and I've never had one day.

That's been an exact repeat of another.

So everything from like weeding, mulching, watering, prepping spaces for guests to come through, installing exhibits, training one plant out for another.

It's all part of the equation.

It never happens the same way twice.

How do you recreate a tropical ecosystem indoors like this?

Yeah, well, obviously it first starts with the building, right?

And we're in Michigan, so we want to get as much sunlight in as possible, even in the months where the sunlight isn't so plentiful.

Which means you want glass.

So we're getting as much light in as we can.

The walls are glass, the ceilings glass.

It's like a giant terrarium, if you will.

And then from there, we're.

Of course, we put pathways through so that people would have access.

And then between all of the pathways and the walls, that's where we have specialized soil that these plants like.

And then we began planting and we've never stopped planting.

We have plants in here that have outgrown the space.

This is a five story tall building.

And we've had things that have gotten too tall, and I've had to take them out and then put in new things to take their place.

So it's constantly evolving.

There's always something different flowering, something different fruiting, something that's at the end of its life.

And so it gets replaced with something newer.

It's constantly changing, so no matter when you visit, you're bound to notice something new.

Where do botanical gardens like Frederik Meijer Gardens fit into conservation efforts?

Conservation comes into play with educating people, creating connections for people.

What I've learned over the years is that people are more likely to care.

And when you care, you put action toward things and the caring starts with experiences.

So coming to a place like this, having the experience, I really appreciate the bananas in here, and I think I appreciate them because of what they do for guests.

You know, I watch day after day, people walk in and it never gets old.

They walk in, they look up and they're like, oh my gosh.

Those are bananas.

I didn't know that's how bananas grew, you know?

And I just love seeing like the wow moment that people have with that and that right there.

That's a connection right now.

Like now they go home and they have a banana on their counter and they know, like, okay, that came from this plant and it grew like this.

And there's, you know, they start to see that connection connecting with nature, noticing a flower that maybe you've never seen before that just totally captures your imagination.

It's those little things that spark an interest in people.

And then that's what I hope that people carry out of here with them is a new appreciation for when they get home.

They may be look at their landscape in a different way, or notice things, notice plants in a different way, or notice an animal plant relationship in a different way.

And they start to think about that, get curious about it and care about it.

And then, like I said, with caring comes the conservation aspect.

Can you maybe think of one plant in this conservatory that really tells that story of conservation, or like why protecting these ecosystems matter so much?

I can yes, it's probably one of my favorite plants in here is the double coconut.

So coconut palms, you'll see them in tropical places around the world.

And that's because the seed for them floats.

So when it drops into the ocean it can float.

And then wherever it happens to, you know, land on land and sprout, that's where it can become a tree.

The double coconut still in the coconut palm family.

But the seed number one does not float, which means that it has no way to get from one island to the other on its own.

So as far as an example of why conservation matters, you have a plant that is very localized, can't just naturally grow anywhere, and it's a slow grower, so planting it and just expecting it to populate an area isn't going to happen quickly.

It really takes patience and care and the right environment for it to become mature and produce more seats.

I think the quiet moments, sometimes they're what really hit me the most.

One of my favorite images that comes to mind is during our butterfly display.

There was a butterfly on the ground and there was a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, on her hands and knees on the ground like this.

Just just watching, just watching the butterfly.

I'm like that right there.

That's what it's all about, right?

It's those quiet moments, the connection.

Just really taking it in.

I don't know if they're in here today or not.

This is also where our resident cats call their home base.

So.

Tell us about Healing Hens and how it evolved.

Because I know it started during the pandemic.

Right.

So it hatched during 2020.

So it was during a Covid and we were all on lockdown.

I got myself some chickens.

They just became my companions and I recognized they all had different personalities and they actually liked to be held and a light bulb went off.

I'm like, wow, they've been therapy to me.

I wonder if I could share them in my day job working with seniors.

So I asked my boss and he's like, chicken therapy, okay, you know, but everyone was doing different things during Covid just to do anything, you know, because it was tough.

So we launched our very first chicken therapy during Covid that fall, we were working with the health department, and we were able to get into an assisted living and engage with folks that hadn't had any human interaction, let alone animal interaction, for months.

So it was very special.

And from there it just it took off.

What do you think you can attribute to the hens as it relates to therapy and to helping those who we have the Alzheimer's Association here today and things along those lines.

What is it about the healing hens that is healing well, unique to chickens?

Many people, especially in the Midwest, grew up on farms.

And so when you're working with folks that have Alzheimer's or different types of dementia, it's a strong link to the past.

So when you put a chicken in someone's arms, they might not be able to hold a conversation or remember who you are in the moment, but they'll remember way back when.

You know, in childhood, it's soothing and calming.

It often helps nonverbal dementia patients start to talk hum.

We've had people break out singing, sobbing.

I mean, to witness it is it's really special when you you think it's a chicken, you know?

And yet it really has been powerful therapeutically.

I had heard about this through the support group and I it sounded so fascinating and so different than anything we had done.

And Larry, as a, as a child, he grew up in Mexico and he raised chickens.

I think it's wonderful that we have this opportunity.

How great that she would open her home to us to come out.

There's not a lot of places that we can all get together and be ourselves.

So studies have shown that chickens can help reduce anxiety, depression and social isolation, I guess, as well as increased like a person's meaning and purpose.

What are your thoughts as a social worker on that?

Absolutely.

I think today's event really showed that seeing the smiles and all of our patients faces really showed how much they got out of that experience.

I had patients coming up to me after saying how happy that experience made them, but also on the other patients faces, how happy they were to see their colleagues happy as well.

And it helps bring them outside with their other loved ones, which was really helpful.

So it was like a double whammy.

How exactly does it help?

Great question.

So we had one patient who does have some confusion, and she grew up on a farm years and years and years ago.

She's in her 80s.

And holding that chicken brought her back to her childhood.

And all of our staff said they've never seen her so happy.

We've known her for years.

She's been here a couple of times and everyone was elated to see how happy she was.

I think she likes me.

Sometimes you wonder they're so helpless and then you realize they're not really all that helpless.

Yeah, we said, how are we going to get you back upstairs without a check?

And she said, you're not bringing it in my coat.

When you look at things like Alzheimer's, dementia, depression, what is it stimulating.

What is it doing for those?

I know you talk about bringing back some memories of their of their youth, but also then when you look at depression or dementia as a whole, what is that stimulating or how exactly is that working?

Yeah, I had a couple of patients that are struggling with that and isolation, especially since they've been in the emergency room for such a long time and then admitted for a long time and now in a different hospital setting.

They haven't had fresh air in sometimes weeks or months.

So them saying they were able to be outside with animals was just more than any medicine, or any other intervention could have helped them all do come together.

We're very fortunate in the area that we've just got a strong network of people that really do care and do the right thing for seniors, and I think they've rallied around chicken therapy knowing it's unique, it's different.

Seniors love it and so we'll go to community.

They're very involved.

It's great to be a part of that.

When we're all working together for the the greater good.

Sometimes I feel selfish because I get so much joy out of it, because I see the joy it brings to other people.

It's a privilege, honestly, and I still tear up.

So I know I'm supposed to be doing this because it really is meaningful.

I will put a plug in for the chickens because it's neat to see they bring so much joy, you know, and people will remember their names.

Oh, are you bringing Sophie or Charlotte back?

But to touch people's lives and you only live 3 or 5 years as a chicken, I swear.

I think they know this.

They.

They behave themselves except today.

But they typically behave themselves and go into communities.

They love that.

And so I think they know, I know, they know.

Throughout the day too.

Yeah.

I think all yeah, that's his bucket now.

Oh.

Dude, I want I want to be the big dude, man.

I wanna be unc.

He wants that bucket.

He wants that.

He wants that bucket real bad And then we got a car behind us.

I don't know what to do.

(Dancey music) Deer Tracks Junction Adventure park is a little bit different than your regular zoo.

So typically when you go to the zoo, you think of seeing animals from afar.

And here we get up close and personal so everybody's hands on with you and your hands on with them.

So there's a major difference there.

And we really find that we want to have people connecting with animals, but we want them to grow a love for wildlife forever.

We just make sure that we create an environment where you are the enrichment for the animals so you can feed them, you can pet them, and you can hang out with them all day.

So we are an immersive hands on petting zoo and we're all about making memories, but we're about making those memories and learning new things in an educational environment.

When you're not sitting in front of a screen, you're learning something new about an animal just by seeing it.

So you're engaging in a different way that we're used to.

It's not so like hands on in front of your face with your phone.

It's hands on with your hands out in front of you.

So we own all of our animals as to where sometimes you can hear about zoos renting or borrowing borrowing animals.

We don't do that here.

These animals are our family.

Most of them stay on site forever.

Maybe not that guy.

Just kidding.

So some animals can show up daily, whether they're born here or they need a new home.

And then sometimes they go home because they're sold and someone falls in love with them.

But typically they are our family and they figure that.

So for me, it's so important to have a safe space in our own backyards for these animals, for the education.

There are people that show up here that have not even been around goats or pigs or anything like that.

So giving people a space that's comfortable, safe, fun is so important because it's scary out there these days.

You know, things are not comfortable and safe everywhere.

So to me, it's just creating a clean, safe environment for everybody to come.

And the animals, you know, it just goes hand in hand.

We're taking care of each other.

We take care of the animals.

They take care of us.

We give them snacks.

We feel good.

You know, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

You were made for the camera.

It's a big bro.

A lot of them seem to be attracted to the camera.

Have a good day!