27 May 2020 Ollie the Collie: Therapy dog is one of a handful in the nation
There are workplaces that allow employees to bring their animals, and there are scenarios where the animal IS the employee. But in the case of Ollivander Aloysius Smith and the University of Central Arkansas, the situation is a little bit of both.
Ollie, who turns 3 in June, is a therapy dog assigned to the athletic training department with his master Aaron Smith, a UCA professor and athletic trainer. But while the collie is a familiar sight in the classroom, on the sidelines and around training facilities on campus, he’s hardly that outside of Conway.
“As far as I’m aware, and this may have changed because you can’t keep up with everybody, he is the only therapy dog being used in college athletics in the state of Arkansas,” Smith said. “When we first started, he was definitely the only one.”
In fact, Smith said, when he first got Ollie in 2017, he only knew of one other therapy dog in all of Division I athletics nationwide.
Smith came up with the idea for incorporating a therapy dog into athletic training while an undergrad at UCA. He’d become interested in the mental aspects of athletic performance, especially when it came to healing. A therapy animal, especially a dog, seemed to be a tool that was missing from the toolbox.
It would be several years before he’d actually voice his idea, following graduate school at Valparaiso and returning to his alma mater. By that time, mental health had gained more attention in the sports medicine field, such that Smith was emboldened to resurrect his idea. His superiors gave it the go ahead, and the hunt for the right animal began.
“There’s a lot of breeds that are really good for therapy work, working in hospitals and schools,” Smith said. “I did my research to make sure I got a breed that was going to have a good, calm temperament.
“I decided I wanted a dog with longer hair because eventually I want to start taking him down to Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and tactically, children like having hair to pet. It pretty much came down to golden retrievers and collies.”
His choice of a rough collie immediately presented Smith with challenges. Unlike in the 1960s and 1970s when the TV show “Lassie” boosted the breed’s popularity, collies have become steadily less common, so much so that Smith scoured adoptable pets for months without finding a suitable specimen.
When he finally found one at a breeder in Mayflower, the woman had her doubts that the pup, the last of his litter, would be a good match for what Smith was proposing.
“I kind of had to convince her to let me see him in the first place,” Smith said. “Got out of the car when I got there, and he walked right up to me and put his paw right on me when I knelt down. I’m like oh, I know he’s the one. I didn’t even plan on getting him that day, but I got him right there.”
As Ollie worked through the levels of training — from basic obedience to specialized therapy skills — he was a constant at Smith’s side. As such, Smith noticed the hound had a far wider impact and appeal than even he’d imagined.
“When I first started this whole process, it was going to be for the major injuries where athletes are in here for months and months doing rehab,” he said. “But I’ve actually seen a lot more athletes responding to him in daily situations.
“We have athletes from all over the country, and maybe they’re just homesick or maybe they had a dog at home and they miss their dog or something like that. Those are the ones who come in, and they don’t need treatment, they don’t need rehab, they’ll just come in, say hi and pet a dog that day.
“College students in general are stressed, but add on everything an athlete has to deal with and sometimes they just need a chance to blow off some steam. They play with Ollie and take their mind off of everything for a little bit.”
If there’s one standout moment in Ollie’s career thus far, it’s what happened during last fall’s Southland Conference women’s soccer tournament, hosted by UCA. A star player for another team went down with a season-ending knee injury. Smith bolted over to the fallen athlete, surrounded by her school’s athletic trainers, and asked if they needed anything.
“I had been there the previous day, so their team and everybody knew about Ollie,” Smith said. “Their athletic trainer said to me, ‘The only thing she wants right now is Ollie. Can you bring him here?’”
Smith went to where Ollie was waiting and retrieved him. The pup loped along beside his master to where the athlete was, and once there, did the work he was born to do.
“She probably sat there for 10 straight minutes just hugging Ollie and crying and dealing with everything,” Smith said. “That was probably one of the coolest situations he was able to be a part of.”
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