The Philadelphia International Airport celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Wagging Tail Brigade Aug. 26 with a birthday party, writes Tassanee Veipongsa for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The brigade of 23 therapy dogs and their volunteer human handlers greet people and help calm stressed out airport travelers.
To celebrate, several of the dogs were given birthday presents and a customized cake, with passersby invited to eat cupcakes and sign an oversized birthday card.
The brigade spend at least two hours a week at the airport.
Alan Gurvitz, a volunteer with Hope, a Labrador retriever, said the goal is to make travel more pleasant.
“I like to refer to the airport as the land of cancellations and delays. So people tend to be very stressed out here,” Gurvitz said.
Nancy Mittleman and her German shepherd Tank spent hours back in June entertaining stranded children and their parents when bad weather snarled air traffic.
“Soon enough, I had an entire crowd around me,” Mittleman said. “There must have been 10 kids sitting around him and they were talking to each other. And the beauty of it was before that, there were a lot of stressed out parents and a lot of unhappy children.”
Read more about this unique airport service in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
