1st Annual Arbor Terrace Mutt Strutt

Recently, furry friends from around New Jersey gathered to strut their stuff at the assisted living facility in Middletown to bring together the community and the senior residents of Arbor Terrace.

Charles Dixon, Executive Director of Arbor Terrace, said, “Our residents are afforded an opportunity to spend time with the pets. Pet therapy in general is a really good activity for them -- we include this into our activity programming so it allows them quality of life, a high level of interaction with other people and pets, and things that they may not be getting if they were sheltered at home in the community at this time.”

Pet therapy is known to be a great way to help aid in ridding of stress and depression or sadness, and is the reason why this mechanism is so widely used throughout assisted living facilities such as this one, and even on college campuses.

Aside from being able to watch the dog show and interact with the animals, residents were able to get involved by judging the winners and deciding which contestant would win tickets to the 2018 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in February. Dana Goldfarb, organizer of the event, said, “We created the event because we wanted to bring the community into our community. Our residents love dogs, and we thought it would be a really nice way to meld both together.”

The residents of Arbor Terrace were elated to spend time with the dogs and be able to be a part of the event. Vendors were involved in this event as well — one specifically being the pet rescue ‘Rescue Ridge’ where people at the event were able to make donations to the non-profit organization, or express their interest in adopting an animal. Joan Y., a volunteer for Rescue Ridge, said that the organization often participates in events such as this one.

“We have a big event that’s going to be in the Blue Claws stadium this year. We’ve had them at Bar A for the past three years. We’ll be marching in the Asbury Park St. Patty’s Day parade, and we’ve done that for four or five years,” Joan Y. said. She said that ‘Rescue Ridge’ is successful when participating in these events.

Jayne Malone, dog walker participant, said that the welfare of animals is very important to her, so she donates to Monmouth County SPCA. “I’m a pet therapy volunteer there, and we go and visit nursing homes and things, so I donate dog food, blankets, and other things if I have them because they can always use that,” Malone said.

She often participates in events like this because she finds them to be fun. “It gets my dogs more socialized. You know, the more you have them out the better it is, and if there’s a rescue involved you can donate to the rescues,” Malone said. Many of the participants in the event often donate to different organizations for the welfare of animals in addition to joining in on other events in the area.

After this first year’s event, Goldfarb said that they may organize the event differently next year by running it outside in order to have more participants, although she feels it did go very well.

“As you can see by the turn out, the residents absolutely love the dogs, and it brings families together, so I think it was really successful,” Goldfarb said. The residents, dogs and dog walker participants were all able to come together to create a fun-filled afternoon to bring together both communities for a great cause.