It’s a cliché to call dogs “Man’s Best Friend” but it’s also hard to deny the powerful bond between human and canine. LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs sent a group of trained therapy dogs to Stillwater, Oklahoma last week, and demonstrated not only the power of that bond, but also its ability to comfort and heal.

On Oct. 24, an Oklahoma woman was charged with running her car through the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade, killing four and injuring another 47 people. Skyline Elementary teacher Sarah Sturzenbecker felt the need for support as she watched students at her school struggle to deal with their feelings in the aftermath.

“A lot of the people who go to the parade are moms and kids,” Sturzenbecker said. “I noticed when I walked in my classroom the Monday after, it was all the kids wanted to talk about.”

Sturzenbecker spoke with other teachers and many said they were seeing signs in their students as well.

Sturzenbecker and her husband Mike are active at Zion Lutheran Church and Mike had a contact with the K-9 Comfort Dog program, a Lutheran Church ministry that sends volunteer handlers and trained therapy dogs to places where people have been traumatized or affected by tragedy.  K-9 Comfort Dogs have been in place at Sandy Hook Elementary, the site of a deadly school shooting, for the past two years.

Zion Lutheran Church sent a request Oct. 30 and by Nov. 1, 13 dogs and their handlers were in Stillwater, ready to get out in the community.

They visited several school sites, the OSU campus and made visits to Stillwater Medical Center, OU Children’s Hospital and OU Medical Center.

They also visited Stillwater fire stations, making a point to go on the days when firefighters who responded to the parade collision scene would be on duty.

Sarah Sturzenbecker said she saw a variety of reactions as the students at Skyline interacted with the comfort dogs.

“Some just wanted to know about them, some were kind of solemn,” Sturzenbecker said. “Whether the kids were there (at the parade) or not, they have some kind of reaction.”

One boy whose mother died a few years ago simply sat quietly with the dog and was noticeably calmer for the rest of the day.

The teachers, who knew some of the parade victims and have been worried about their students, also benefited. They enjoyed having the dogs in their classrooms and got their own time with them when the handlers turned the teacher lounge into a “comfort lounge.”

K-9 ministry leader Rich Martin said the Comfort Dog ministry was founded in 2008, growing out of the Lutheran Church’s response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

It grew steadily for several years, then began a period of rapid growth in 2012 and 2013 after getting people’s attention while responding in the aftermath of events like the Boston Marathon bombing, the Moore tornado and the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters in Arizona, he said.

Rufus Comfort Dog, the only one in Oklahoma, was placed at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Edmond as a result of the Moore tornado response.

There are now 124 comfort dogs in 18, soon to be 23 states, Martin said. Each goes through up to two years of training before being placed with a church. The dogs have a team of trained handlers, including a primary caretaker the dog lives with, a back-up caretaker and six handlers.

All LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs are carefully-selected Golden Retrievers from bloodlines with proven health and temperament, Martin said.

Zion Lutheran Church Pastor Frank Kinast said after seeing the impact the comfort dogs have, he would like to talk with his congregation about getting one in Stillwater.

It would require raising $12,000, which is only 20 percent of the cost for a trained therapy dog, he said.

The children who met the comfort dogs in Stillwater would likely be in favor of that.

Sturzenbecker said the kids at Skyline Elementary keep asking when the dogs will be back. Her own son, Connor, has a stuffed dog named Pax, after his favorite comfort dog.

Charles writes for The Stillwater (Okla.) News Press