The University of Maryland, Baltimore presented the dogs, dressed in their caps and gowns, with their special degrees alongside their handlers Tuesday at a ceremony reserved just for the devoted animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cDogtor\u201d Loki received her honorary Doctorate of Medicine for extraordinary service during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the university.<\/p>\n
Benzel and Loki raised more than $100,000 for their \u201chero healing kits\u201d to help offer relief to frontline healthcare workers in need of supplies like lotion, Vaseline, coffee, and tea, the university said in a release.<\/p>\n
Loki has won national awards, including from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for her efforts to grow the university\u2019s therapy dog program.<\/p>\n
Loki\u2019s memorable interactions with humans include comforting a dying mother at her bedside as the woman\u2019s family traveled from a distance to join her.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoki ended up spending six hours with her head on her lap, so the woman wouldn\u2019t be alone,\u201d Benzel said prior to the ceremony. \u201cIt shows that there\u2019s a broad scope of what you can do with therapy work. It\u2019s not just being there when they\u2019re doing well, but also the worst times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also honored at the special graduation ceremony were service dogs Kylo Red, a 3-year-old goldendoodle; and Kiera, a 6-year-old labradoodle.<\/p>\n
Both service animals received their ‘Dogtorate’ of Pharmacy and Juris Dogtor degrees, respectively, for offering \u201cinvaluable support to their handlers\u201d as they pursued their degrees, according to the university.<\/p>\n
The University of Maryland, Baltimore presented the dogs, dressed in their caps and gowns, with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81.jpg",1200,650,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81-300x163.jpg",300,163,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81-768x416.jpg",640,347,true],"large":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81-1024x555.jpg",640,347,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81.jpg",1200,650,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81.jpg",1200,650,false],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81.jpg",1024,555,false],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81.jpg",825,447,false],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/BeFunky-collag-81.jpg",590,320,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"nkyeremunews","author_link":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/author\/nkyeremunews\/"},"category_info":"Entertainment<\/a> Nkyeremu<\/a>","tag_info":"Nkyeremu","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkyeremunews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}