Poodle's job is to make people happy

ST. PAUL — This 6-year-old poodle, named Nala, goes to work every day. Her job is to make people happy.

Nala and her owner, nursing assistant Doug Dawson, work at the Lyngblomsten senior housing community in St. Paul. They start each day together, eating breakfast at home and driving into work with one another. But once they walk through the doors of the facility, Doug goes one way and Nala goes another.

“I set her down and she takes off,” Doug says. “She belongs to the people, I’m her chauffeur.”

Doug and Nala reconvene at the end of the day when it’s time to drive home. But until then, Nala’s daily schedule is entirely up to her. She goes where she’s needed most.

Lyngbomsten has almost 400 residents in their care center and senior apartment buildings. Nala can be seen scurrying her way across campus, visiting numerous residents throughout the day. Sometimes she attends group therapy, sometimes she sits in on a bingo game. Oftentimes she is found on the laps of hospice patients or the family members of those who are most sick. Nala has a sense for who needs her most.

“If you’re depressed, she’ll make you laugh. If you’re sick, she’ll lay with you. If you’re dying, she can tell,” Doug says.

Doug adopted Nala when she was just 1-year-old. He was working at a different facility where they used pets as patient therapy. He could tell that Nala was unhappy. She was whining in her cage, not behaving with the patients and not being well cared for. “She had unkempt hair down to the floor,” Doug remembers. “She looked like a little mop.” Doug took her home, clipped her hair, and let her out of her cage to sleep on his bed with him. “She transformed overnight,” he said. “All she needed was a hug.”

Nala has since become the highlight of everyone’s day at Lyngblomsten. She’s even become an Emmy award-winning poodle of sorts. In early 2015, Minneapolis television station KARE-11 introduced the world to Nala. Reporter Boyd Huppert won an Emmy for his story, which he sent to Nala at the facility.

After the story ran on television and online, Nala started receiving fan mail from all over the world. “People usually send treats and letters and toys,” says Doug. The letters are read aloud to the Lyngblomsten residents and then they send responses back in the form of postcards. The responses are written by a mix of residents and employees.

After each busy day of visits, sometimes bingo and lots of love, Nala and Doug head home. “She can tell time,” Doug laughs. “She knows when it’s time to go home.” Doug says that Nala’s time at home is for playing and acting like a dog, running in circles and playing with her toys. Then, Doug says, she “curls into a ball the size of a donut and sleeps.”

After all, making people happy is tiring work.

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