Rusty the 'paw-lunteer' St. Boniface Hospital therapy dog hanging up his glasses
Beloved glasses-wearing dog retiring after 10 years of greeting patients, visitors, staff at Winnipeg hospital
He's quite "pawsibly" the best of all the good boys.
Rusty, well-known as St. Boniface Hospital's glasses-wearing therapy dog, is retiring after logging more than 2,000 volunteer hours greeting patients and staff at the Winnipeg hospital over the last 10 years.
"Rusty's one of a kind," his owner, George Ames, said Wednesday. "But it's just time for him to retire. He doesn't see as well as he'd like to."
The hospital held a retirement party for the 17-year-old pooch Wednesday to commemorate the impact he's had over the years.
That impact was apparent as dozens of nurses, visitors and patients came by to scratch Rusty's ears, take his picture and say goodbye to him.
Sandra Nelson was visiting her father in the hospital and took a second to say thank you.
"Between my parents and my mother-in-law, we've spent many, many days coming back and forth to the hospital. I've heard about him so many times, how wonderful he is," she said.
"My mother-in-law was here for about a month last year and he was the highlight of her stay. We would bring her down here to see him, and to this day she talks about the dog, Rusty with the glasses.
"It was what really made her stay special, for sure."
Rusty means a lot to hospital staff, too.
Chris Riordan, who started working at the hospital six months ago as an administrative assistant with the emergency program, remembers the first time she met him.
"Because I was really new here, I was a little nervous. It's a very big hospital and I didn't know anybody, so I was kind of wandering around, and all of a sudden I saw Rusty," she recalls.
"It was just like, 'Oh my gosh, there's a dog here!' He made me feel so comfortable, so warm and everything. I felt very welcomed. He was the first one that welcomed me here."
Riordan said in the time she's been at the hospital, she's seen how Rusty has touched countless people's lives, and says he's "going to be very missed. Very missed."
"I feel a little emotional, even though I've only been here for six months," Riordan said. "The volunteer animals here are just so precious."
As for Rusty, his retirement plan includes spending winters in Arizona with his owners.
"He likes it," Ames said. "He likes the long car ride."
