About Us
Pets on Wheels is a not for profit volunteer organization which provides friendly visits from volunteers and their pets to those requiring the support of an institutional setting. Visits are most often to nursing homes; however assisted living communities and facilities for the physically and mentally challenged are also recipients of our visits. Recently veterans’ hospitals, programs for the homeless and children at risk of home out placement have also been added to our visits. Our emphasis is on residents who have been unresponsive to ongoing activities. Many of these patients have impaired cognitive abilities due to specific illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease and react to animals with more awareness than to people around them. For instance, repetitive speech behavior or annoying mannerism may cease while a patient is petting an animal. Pets love unconditionally even when a person is no longer attractive, even-tempered, or agile. Their warmth makes a difference to those they visit.
Dr. Frank Folke Furstenberg, a retired allergist and Sinai Hospital physician founded Pets on Wheels in Baltimore, in May 1982. Originally the program was meant to measure the effectiveness of pet visitation on shut-ins, with four volunteer teams visiting four nursing homes. Dr. Furstenberg noted that the stimulation of playing with animals benefited the patients by getting them back to a higher quality of behavior. We now have weekly visitations by more than 1,000 teams in nine Maryland counties and regions. Pets on Wheels continues to “talk, bark, and meow” its way into the lives of thousands of lonely Maryland residents.
More than half of all nursing home residents have no relationships with their relatives, and five percent receive visits less than once a week. It is a very lonely existence. Pets act as intermediaries; they assist in “breaking the ice” when strangers meet. Ideally, a close three-way bond forms between the resident, the pet, and the volunteer.
Volunteers and nursing home staff have concluded that even the most depressed and withdrawn residents will eventually respond to an animal’s attention. They wait expectantly for the team to arrive and frequently will remember the pet’s name. Residents are helped to remember a time when their lives were different than they now are. Visits by a pet team relieve the boredom, which many residents face each day, particularly those unable to leave their beds or rooms to participate in other activities. Depressed or uncommunicative residents have become enthusiastic and talkative in the presence of an animal. pets on Wheels visits add value and increased quality to many lives, as the pet and the volunteer see beyond the outward appearance to the heart of the person. pets on Wheels is a program that makes a difference.
Pets on Wheels is a 501c3 organization and our federal ID # is 52-1657528.