Sometimes, when nurses need a miracle, they call Anna Mortensen.
Why? Simple: Because she’s spent eight years volunteering for the Paws for Patients therapy dog program at CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital, a vital service that patients and staff alike count on to bring them joy and wellness in an environment where they need it most.
Mortensen remembers when she and her five-pound dog Alfie were asked to meet a patient who hadn’t spoken for a week.
“I took Alfie in, put Alfie down, and she looked at him, she started to pet him, and she started to talk,” Mortensen recalls. “It wasn’t the Gettysburg Address, but she’s talking, and the nurse told me after that she then talked the rest of the time she was there.”
“Something about having that dog next to her on the bed or lying on her lap was enough to break down whatever barriers she had up,” she added.
Stories like these are hardly a rarity when you speak to anyone who works with therapy dogs in Colorado. Mortensen is a program volunteer, and Barbara O’Dwyer is the program lead for Paws for Patients, which provides CommonSpirit with therapy dogs that visit the St. Anthony Hospital locations in Lakewood and Westminster. The therapy dogs also work at other locations, including airports, nursing homes, schools, and with HOPE during catastrophes.
Karen Neiswanger, a retired St. Anthony nurse, started the program around 2001. Today, St. Anthony North utilizes 24 therapy dog teams, while the Lakewood location uses 14. Over the course of an average day, these four-legged companions provide moments of joy to everyone from patients to the doctors, nurses, and emergency medical workers who spend much of their days responding to potentially traumatic situations.
“While the program’s called Paws for Patients, we say it’s paws for anyone in the building,” O’Dwyer, who works with patients and staff at St. Anthony North with her dog, Harry. “It doesn't matter if you’re a family, doctor, nurse, housekeeping … if you need a visit from a dog, you get it.”
A Different Kind of First Responder
When tragedy strikes, the CommonSpirit therapy dogs are among the first to respond at the hospital. In 2025, when an Evergreen High School student shot two classmates before taking his own life, the victims were rushed to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood.
“After the Evergreen shooting, the Emergency Department staff was asked: ‘What do you guys need?’ and they said: ‘We want our dogs,’” Mortensen said.
So, she and Alfie, along with other therapy dog teams, made their way to the hospital, where Mortensen said he was passed from one staff member to another.
“They just stood and held him,” she said.
Alfie also formed a close relationship with one of the shooting’s survivors, who arrived at the hospital unconscious and on a ventilator. One day, Mortensen said she realized that Alfie was lying directly on his heart.
“Dogs can regulate their heartbeats to people,” Mortensen said. “I realized that the dog had regulated his breath to the ventilator. He was breathing with the ventilator. And when the survivor woke up, we were in the room, and he was sitting there, and he had the dog … he was just so tickled. It was just so special.”
Research has repeatedly demonstrated the benefits of therapy dogs, which include everything from the release of mood-bolstering drugs like dopamine to their ability to decrease stress in even the most harrowing situations.
“Healing is much more than medicine, and the dogs provide a form of medicine that’s not a shot,” O’Dwyer said. “You don’t have to swallow a pill, but it brings that sense of warmth, it brings a sense of normalcy.”
Qualified to Provide Unique Care
Like the staff who care for patients, therapy dogs in Colorado, particularly in the Paws program, must receive specialized training. The Alliance of Therapy Dogs must officially certify these animals by testing both the canines and their handlers in person to ensure they’re a suitable team. O’Dwyer noted that while some animals might be wonderful therapy dogs in various settings, hospitals are especially difficult environments due to the combination of loud noises, unusual smells, and elevators.
“The rules are very strict,” Mortensen added.
But these standards help the special team of therapy dogs at both St. Anthony Hospital locations brighten up otherwise dark days in ways that only people’s best friends can.
Bonnie Kramer, a retired veterinarian who has volunteered with Paws for Patients for more than 11 years, has seen that evolution firsthand. She remembers when the program was a small group that visited the hospital just one evening a week.
“We now have [dogs] in St. Anthony Hospital,” Kramer said. “My dog, Quinn, also works as an animal-assisted therapy dog for the rehabilitation unit … to encourage patients in reaching their goals. He also is a ‘crew member’ of Flight for Life. In that job, he’s a stress reliever and participant in their fundraising activities.”
At St. Anthony North, patients can scan a QR code right from their beds to request a visit from a therapy dog. Once O’Dwyer and her Harry arrive for their volunteer shifts, they make a beeline for those patients and then chat with the nurses to see who else might benefit from their services. The job also has an on-call component based on patient needs.
“I field at least three calls a week of ‘I’ve got someone at the end of their life, can you get me a dog? I’ve got someone who needs to see a dog, can you get me one,’ etc …” O’Dwyer said. “We are available on-call pretty much any time of day.”
And while most dogs work two-hour shifts, Mortensen’s dog Alfie sometimes works four. That commitment is a testament to both O’Dwyer’s and Mortensen’s incredible devotion to a program that is so impactful to so many.
“Every dog is rewarded as they leave the hospital for doing a good job,” O’Dwyer said. “For some dogs, it’s going to the dog park. For Harry, it’s Chick-Fil-A. Every dog has their routine.”
Mortensen laughed: “Alf just goes to bed.”
‘The Most Amazing Thing I’ve Ever Done’
Bonnie Carroll has been volunteering with hospital therapy dogs in Colorado since 2013, when she retired from St. Anthony’s after 42 years in the microbiology department.
“You learn very quickly that our sweet canines can see the sick and troubled patient with an ‘I understand, and I care look,’” she said, adding that this has been able to bring out the best in the patients, families, nurses, and doctors at the hospital who interact with her dog Annie.
O’Dwyer has experienced the bond between handler and therapy dog firsthand, including the loss of her longtime therapy dog, Mack, three years ago. She began volunteering at St. Anthony North with Mac in 2019 and later helped rebuild the program after the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, she continues that work with Harry.
In addition to bolstering patient care, Carroll, Kramer, O’Dwyer, and Mortensen all agreed that participating in the hospital therapy dog program has also improved their lives.
“I’ve done multiple things in my life,” Mortensen said. “This is, other than my family, the most amazing thing I’ve ever done.”
