My human and I visited the assisted living residence, and it was all decked out for the holidays! The lobby was filled with festive decorations, and when we walked into the big room for our visit, lively Christmas music filled the air.

But the holidays aren’t always a happy time for people in homes like these. And this house, and the other one we visit, are for memory care patients. So underneath the music, there was a tension that my human and I could sense.

It wasn’t subtle. During a lot of our visit, a guy in a wheelchair kept screaming. Out of nowhere, we’d hear, “Mama! For favor!” The staff tried to calm him down, but it took a while.

But we still managed to see a lot of our regulars. In fact, one of them, the lady who wears tie dye, was the first resident we saw. And the lady who likes my high fives. And the cat loving man who doesn’t recognize me anymore but who still enjoys petting me. Plus of course the nonverbal woman who pets me with heavy hands. She does art and she showed my human the drawing she was holding.

Not everyone was happy to see me. One of the regulars, the elderly lady who’s usually overjoyed to see me, was having a bad day. She sat glumly and didn’t cheer up when I sat next to her. In fact, she barely responded That made my human a little sad.

But we did make some new friends. A staff member was leading us around so he could take photos of me with the residents. And he brought me to a couple of really delightful new women. One of them didn’t say much, but when the staff member asked if she wanted to see me, her face lit up with a smile.

Usually the second house isn’t as busy as the first one. But something special happened this time. As soon as we got there, one of the staff told us there was a lady who would really, really appreciate seeing me.

As we walked down several corridors to the room, she explained that this was a new resident. The lady was very sad that she had to leave her cat behind and nobody had been able to cheer her up.

Well, I think you know what happened when my human walked in with me. She was beyond excited to see me and couldn’t stop hugging and kissing me. She started to tell us about her cat…and couldn’t remember her name. Which didn’t matter, really, because she remembered so much else about her.

Making this woman happy was probably the best Christmas present we’ll get this year.

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