GREEN RIVER ANIMAL SHELTER, GREEN RIVER, WY

living with pets Fosters add canine shine to Living Center

SeniorPaws program gives joy to seniors and helps older dogs find loving homes.

By Cody Cottier

In the first few months of this year, Nancy Rufener lost a dog, a partner and a best friend.

To be clear, she said goodbye to three different loved ones — her black Lab, Sammy, her life partner, Danny Gardiner, and a close companion from her pre-Jackson days in San Diego.

As if that tragic triad wasn’t enough, it transpired against a backdrop of virusinduced isolation. The onset of the COVID-19 crisis forced Rufener to grieve in quarantine.

But she didn’t have to grieve alone. Just in time she found a new friend, one who would sit beside her in her darkest moments, or curl into her lap and lick the tears from her face.

She adopted Laverne, an 8-yearold Jack Russell terrier mix, after they met at St. John’s Living Center, where Rufener visited Gardiner during hospice care. The pup was living there as one of the pioneers of a new program, SeniorPAWS, through which the nursing home fosters dogs while they await adoption, brightening the residents’ world in the process.

Actually, according to Rufener, “Laverne adopted us.” The little dog had already been at the center about a week when Gardiner checked in, but she hadn’t formed a deep bond with any particular person. It seemed she’d been waiting for the newcomers.

RYAN DORGAN / NEWS&GUIDE Danny Keller walks Joey outside St. John’s Living Center in early June. Keller and the little 8-year-old dog have walked together two to three times a week since she arrived at the Living Center in January as part of the SeniorPAWS fostering program.

“One night she just barged into the room and got on Danny’s bed,” Rufener said, “and that was it. She didn’t want to go with anybody else.”

On another night, around 2 a.m., an alarm for one of Danny’s medications went off. Laverne switched into watchdog mode, growled at the alarm, then jumped onto the bed, apparently guarding the human she had taken in her charge. Rufener watched in amazement, thinking, “Dang, I need this dog.”

When Danny died shortly after, several families had already shown interest in adopting Laverne. But one by one, for one serendipitous reason or another, they all backed out. As soon as Rufener heard, she called Jess Farr, the program director at the nonprofit PAWS of Jackson Hole. See Living Center on 7

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