Debra K. Schuster, of Paule, Camazine & Blumenthal in Clayton, Missouri, was already working with one touch-therapy dog when another entered her life in 2015. Then a solo attorney, she was donating a puppy for a veterans fundraiser when, “long story short, the person who bid on him ended up not wanting to keep him. So I ended up with him,” the estate planning and elder law attorney says. “Yadi was not a traditional puppy. He’s always been extremely calm, so he was perfectly suited to be an emotional touch therapy dog.”
A Rhodesian ridgeback-beagle mix, Yadi (left, below) instinctively puts his head on the arm or leg of an upset client. He once helped Schuster set up powers of attorney for a young adult with autism who loved dogs but couldn’t communicate with people. “This young man came to my office, and I ‘asked’ Yadi the questions I needed to prepare the documents, and he ‘answered,'” Schuster says. “Yadi was basically the go-between. We didn’t make any eye contact, and we got his documents completed. It was pretty amazing.”
Copyright by Super Lawyers. Reprinted with permission.
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