How this dog can help calm the waters when Lowcountry families fall apart

Adobe is a sweet dog.

He is new to the Lowcountry, but fits right in, being a 2 1/2-year-old Labrador/golden mix.

He makes his golden head available for petting, but then gets back to his serious business.

Adobe’s assignment in life is to help the much more advanced humans of the Lowcountry deal with their worst selves.

He’s neither psychiatrist nor street preacher. Or if he is, he won’t say. In fact, Adobe doesn’t say a word, but his message is profound.

He helps people of the Lowcountry deal with sexual assault, child abuse and domestic violence.

Adobe’s job is to be a calm place in a violent storm. He looks like a Lowcountry Zen monk, minding his own business, not paying attention, living in the moment by doing less.

But that demeanor helps ease the stress and anxiety of people served by Hopeful Horizons. Adobe is the new service dog working at the nonprofit organization that addresses the dirty secrets of society in five Lowcountry counties, all of it free and confidential.

“He offers unconditional love and acceptance,” said his handler, Angela Freeman, clinical services director at Hopeful Horizons.

“That’s something humans have trouble with. Even though no words come out of Adobe’s mouth, he offers hope and comfort.”

Adobe has mastered 41 commands. He’s trained to sit calmly through yelling and screaming. He can bring instant smiles to clients of Hopeful Horizons, a United Way agency that last year served 2,452 primary and secondary victims of child abuse, domestic violence and sexual assault. Slightly more than half of them were children.

He offers a sense of safety and security. Adobe’s mere presence is his greatest contribution.

He helps children deal with tough interviews about things they’re embarrassed to talk about, or that may hurt someone they love, or could result in a family getting split apart. He helps them go where they don’t want to go.

With a judge’s permission, Adobe can even go into the courtroom with people who need that somewhat mysterious helping paw.

All of this was studied over the past couple of years. CEO Shauw Chin Capps said anything new has to be evidence-based, and Adobe’s work is proven to support the emotional well-being of the child. It helps Hopeful Horizons meet accreditation standards of offering a family-friendly and child-friendly oasis.

Adobe came free from Canine Companions for Independence, a national nonprofit group whose volunteers trained Adobe from birth until his professional training began at about 18 months. Finally came team training with Freeman, who keeps Adobe at home with her three other dogs.

Canine Companions has “graduated” Adobe and Freeman and about 6,000 other teams of dogs and handlers since it was founded in 1975. “Give a dog a job,” they say.

The job of holding up mankind is not as easy as Adobe makes it look.

This story was originally published July 31, 2018 at 12:18 PM.