That Heal Sounds of laughter echo from a room at the UCLA Medical Center. Corky is just one of 40 dogs making the rounds at the huge hospital in Los Angeles, California.
Every dog wears a picture identification card and a blue bandanna with a paw-print design.
In hospitals around the country, dogs are helping patients get better. At the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Sandra Barker uses her own dog to calm nervous patients. At UCLA and in New York City s Mount Sinai Medical Center, dogs help people recover from brain and spinal-cord injuries. Most dogs practicing in hospitals today are trained by Therapy Dogs International in New Jersey or the Delta Society, an organization based in Seattle, Washington. UCLA s program began in 1994.