A Four-Legged Answer to Nurse Wellbeing?

April 7, 2025 ‐ HealthLeaders Media

By G Hatfield

CNOs everywhere have come up with innovative solutions for nurse wellbeing and retention.

But none quite like the one Beth Steinberg has implemented.

In her 43 years as a nurse, Steinberg, who serves as the associate director of research at the OSU Center for Integrative Health, noticed that stress and burnout were reaching all-time highs, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Lower work engagement and burnout were causing more turnover and nurses were rapidly leaving the bedside to follow different career paths.

“We lost a lot of our healthcare staff during the COVID pandemic,” Steinberg said, “and then afterwards, people found that they just weren’t able to come back to the bedside…[or] the hospital environment.”

The healthcare exodus has since slowed, but stress and burnout continue to be top concerns for CNOs and healthcare providers in many inpatient and ambulatory settings, Steinberg explained.

Enter the Buckeye Paws program.

Meet the pups

One the biggest hurdles with previous wellness programs for staff that Steinberg implemented was that nurses are too busy during their shifts to access the provided resources.

“They had to register, they had to schedule, maybe take some time off,” Steinberg said. “It’s not easy to step away when you’re taking care of patients.”

Inspiration struck Steinberg when she and her colleague in the nursing department both got new puppies and began training them to be therapy dogs. The goal for the Buckeye Paws program, which was launched in 2020, is to bring a wellness program to the nurses and to meet them where they’re at.

“As we were training our dogs to become therapy dogs, we talked about how we might bring a program into the hospital, not for patients, but for staff,” Steinberg said. “We wanted to make it a program that was so accessible that we would go to where staff were working.”

According to Steinberg, the program is run with stringent policies and procedures. At first, they thought they would only need eight to 10 dogs for the academic medical center, but they realized quickly during the program’s pilot that they would need many more.

“We had a lot of excitement about the program,” Steinberg said. “There are a lot of therapy dog programs out there, but the American Kennel Club has recognized Buckeye Paws as singular in the nation as a therapy dog program because it is a peer support program.”

Currently, there are about 30 handlers, who are all medical center or university employees who volunteer their time to be part of the handler team. The handlers are trained in trauma informed care and mental health first aid before they are allowed to provide support.

“We have physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, administrative staff, physical therapists, [just] a wide variety of handlers with varying amounts of time,” Steinberg said. “They might do it on the weekends [or] the holidays when they’re not in the office.”

There are 20 more dogs set to join the program, which will bring the total to about 50 dogs, which is how many are needed to meet the needs of the organization, Steinberg explained.

“We have a canine master trainer that has oversight of our program that puts dogs through all the testing,” Steinberg said. “We also have temperament testing and canine good citizen requirements as well as their health requirements and things like that.”

A paws-itive impact

According to Steinberg, the Buckeye Paws dogs have a massive positive impact on the staff. They get called in for traumatic events, and they are available for staff to speak to with a nonjudgemental attitude.

“Dogs are nonjudgemental,” Steinberg said, “so the staff readily talk to the dogs about what’s going on with their day [and] what’s going on with their personal lives.”

Nurses and other staff members tend to be more honest with the dogs about how they are actually doing, Steinberg explained.

“There’s a dynamic that changes things with the presence of a dog that provides that nonjudgemental support for people to feel comfortable and to be vulnerable,” Steinberg said. “It doesn’t always happen with humans.”

The nurses’ reaction has also been incredible, according to Steinberg.

“So many times we’ll see people down the hall, and you’ll see their face change,” Steinberg said. “They start to light up, [and] they start running down the hall towards the dogs.”

However, the handlers are also trained to recognize when people are afraid of dogs or don’t want to interact with them. Those who don’t want to interact with the dogs can still get the benefits of seeing their coworkers’ moods lifted, Steinberg explained.

“There are people that are fearful, there are people that have allergies, and there are also people [who] culturally don’t believe in dogs as pets,” Steinberg said. “We recognize that and we’re very aware of the behaviors and reactions of people when we come to the unit, whether they welcome that dog or not.”

Tips for CNOs

For CNOs and other nurse leaders who might want to try this approach in their organizations, Steinberg emphasized that innovation is key.

“Hospitals have had therapy dog programs for [many] years, but usually they’re for patients and families,” Steinberg said. “Having something just specific to our staff, they’ve been so grateful and appreciative that when they see Buckeye Paws on the unit, they know we’re not there to see a patient, we are there for them.”

There is also research being done through the program that aims to measure the impact of the program on staff, the handlers, and the dogs. While this kind of program is not a fix for system-wide issues, Steinberg explained that the program has value as something that can help nurses get through their day.

“There are big picture things that still need to be worked on,” Steinberg said, “but when you introduce something that can just for a few minutes offer support and maybe help improve mood, there are some downstream effects to that, [such as peer support], collaboration, patient care, and things like that.”

Steinberg says Buckeye Paws can provide support to other health systems by helping them develop similar programs and working with them on policy, recruiting, and finding a canine master trainer.

“Not every hospital is suited or accepting of this kind of program,” Steinberg said, “but if you can pull it off, it’s so beneficial for the staff.”

G Hatfield is the CNO editor for HealthLeaders.

Be the Expert! Share this: