(upbeat music) - Intermountain Therapy Animals provides animal-assisted interactions and therapies to the community in Utah and Montana with affiliate organizations across the country.

Stephanie Jacobs and Luke Wren are here to tell us about the upcoming Paws in Wonderland event.

Hi both, thanks for coming and bringing your beautiful dogs.

- Thanks for having us.

- Stephanie, we're gonna start with you and Biscuit here.

- Sure, sure.

- So let's talk about the big fundraiser coming up.

- So we're so excited, everyone mark your calendars.

It's October 3rd.

It's a time where you can come out and you get to meet a lot of the therapy dogs that volunteer in our community.

It's a great time to learn more about therapy animals, if it's something that you're interested in and just come and celebrate with us.

It's a really beautiful opportunity to come and celebrate these amazing animals.

- That's great.

And I know Luke, you brought this sweet 2-year-old Beckett.

So talk a little about what you and Beckett do as part of Therapy Animals.

- Yeah, so with Beckett and I, what we do is we visit hospitals currently right now.

So we visit, shout out to the Primary Children's in Lehi and Lone Peak and Draper.

So we go and visit the patients there.

And then also what we do is it's, sometimes I feel like it's more for the caregivers.

'Cause the caregivers, they need that emotional stress relief.

Bring down your blood pressure also.

And the great thing about this program though, too, with Intermountain Therapy Animals, which Stephanie does, is the Read Program, which we also do also, where kids get to read to dogs, which is great.

'Cause they don't feel like they're being judged.

And dogs are so lovely and beautiful that it makes the kids feel great.

- So Stephanie, what are some great experiences you've had with this beautiful animal?

- Oh my gosh, there's so many, but they say that animals actually regulate our nervous systems without saying a word.

So it's so amazing what these dogs can do just by being in the presence of another person, but not just emotional and just lowering our stress.

But they're also really therapeutic, so.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So they change our lives and we know it.

Anyway, thank you so much for being here and sharing your animals.

Thanks.

And if you'd like to know more about Intermountain Therapy Animals and about their upcoming Paws in Wonderland, where you can meet a lot of the dogs, that will be October 3rd from 5:30 to 8:30 at Zion Technology Center in Midvale.

Just go to therapyanimals.org/events, therapyanimals.org/events.

I'm Mary Dickson, thanks for watching "Contact".

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Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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