A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home, by Sue Halpern

Pransky was bored. Long ago the middle-aged Labradoodle had mastered the doggie imperatives: “Come.” “Sit.” “Stay.” More recently she had learned the names of her possessions: “Bear.” “Bone.” “Ball.” And she knew what to do with them: “Find your sock and bring it inside.” “Drop the toy.” “Go to bed.” A dog of immense energy, every day and in all weather she bounced and rambled through meadows and woods. But that wasn’t enough for Pransky.

Sue Halpern, Pransky’s owner, was bored too. Her husband (environmentalist Bill McKibben) was often away from home because of work commitments. Their daughter was about to leave for boarding school. A woman of immense energy, Halpern is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College; has written for a host of national magazines, including Rolling Stone, the New Yorker and Mother Jones; edits the electronic imprint of the New York Review of Books; and wrote five books before this one. But that wasn’t enough for her.

So what new, invigorating activity could a woman and her dog pursue, living as they did at the end of a dirt road in rural Vermont? Because Halpern didn’t own sheep, Pransky couldn’t herd. Though Pransky occasionally hunted, Halpern wasn’t enthusiastic about increasing her neighborhood’s toll of dead bunnies and squirrels. And then Halpern learned about Therapy Dogs International, one of many organizations that train and certify dogs and their handlers to volunteer in hospitals and nursing homes.