{"id":23230,"date":"2019-03-15T12:42:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T16:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23230"},"modified":"2019-03-21T18:04:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:04:27","slug":"hould-recognized-with-good-citizenship-medal-for-therapy-dog-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hould-recognized-with-good-citizenship-medal-for-therapy-dog-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Hould recognized with Good Citizenship medal for therapy dog work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora resident Vivian Hould was one of eight Ontarians\nrecognized at Queen\u2019s Park on Wednesday with the Ontario Medal for Good\nCitizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presented by Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell,\nMs. Hould was recognized for her years of dedicated service and compassionate\nwork with the St. John\u2019s Ambulance York Region Therapy Dog Program, through\nwhich she has assisted thousands of people, including local residents living\nwith Alzheimer\u2019s Disease, while spreading joy and happiness to everyone they\nencounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am honoured to invest this year\u2019s recipients of the\nOntario Medal for Good Citizenship, all of whom have demonstrated a common\ndevotion to Ontario,\u201d said the Lieutenant-Governor. \u201cGood citizenship is the\nfoundation of a society that aspires to be resilient. It is fundamentally about\nhow we live together and what we can expect from one another. The civic\nleadership of these awardees is helping to shape our future as well as our\npresent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship is not the only\nhonour Ms. Hould has received for her decades of service. Nearly five years\nago, she was recognized by then-Governor General David Johnston with the Caring\nCanadian Award, an award for which she was nominated by the 140-strong team of\nvolunteers \u2013 and their dogs \u2013 she shepherded through the St. John\u2019s program for\n19 years before her retirement in August 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Hould, a retiree from Bell Canada, has always had a\ngiving instinct. As a high school student growing up in Montreal, she\nvolunteered her time as a candy striper in a local hospital. But when her time\nat Bell came to an end, she was not content to sit idle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before St. John\u2019s Ambulance developed their program, Ms.\nHould had her long-haired dachshund evaluated for the program. Soon after the\ndog passed with flying colours, she went blind, scuttling \u2013 temporarily \u2013 their\nhopes she would be able to make a difference as a therapy dog. Later, a\nveterinarian suggested she try the dog again in the St. John\u2019s Program, and the\nseeds for two decades of service were sewn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe could sense the doors would be open,\u201d said Ms. Hould\nof her blind companion, in 2014. \u201cHere was an example of a dog that was blind\nand could still be a therapy dog. We have blind dogs in the program, deaf dogs\nand there are no limitations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From her humble beginnings as a volunteer, Ms. Hould\u2019s\neventually became coordinator for Aurora and Newmarket. This responsibility\neventually expanded to include just about every area from Steeles Avenue in the\nsouth to Lake Simcoe in the north, and from Highway 404 in the east to Highway\n27 in the west.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responsibilities as the program\u2019s coordinator include\nmonitoring volunteers, evaluating new teams of owner and dog, and teaching them\nwhat to do and how to visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through her work with the Therapy Dog Program work\nexpanded beyond nursing homes and hospitals. In addition to her Paws For\nStories program in local libraries, she joined forces with the Town of Aurora\nand the OSPCA to develop the Play It Safe with Dogs program, which visits local\nschools throughout York Region teaching kids dog bite prevention techniques. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its formation in 2000, Ms. Hould estimates the\nprogram has been presented to nearly 30,000 kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Aurora there are so many children who will come up to\nyou and ask, \u2018may I pet your dog,\u2019 and it is obvious they have either had the\nprogram or their siblings have taught their younger siblings the right way to\nmeet a dog,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I am with [the therapy program] it is all about\nthe smiles. In nursing homes, people\u2019s heads are often down because they are so\ndepressed but when you go in and you see you bring a smile to their face it\njust makes your heart feel good. Maybe it\u2019s selfish, but it really makes you\nfeel good.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora resident Vivian Hould was one of eight Ontarians recognized at Queen\u2019s Park on Wednesday with the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-14-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-62G","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:19:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}