Arni, a Shih Tzu who suffers from heart failure, is being fostered by the staff at the Sloan Comfort Care Home, an end-of-life comfort care facility for humans, where Arni has become a welcome addition to the staff and guests.
Arni sat quietly at the end of the bed where Victoria Houston rested inside Sloan Comfort Care Home. Arni, an older Shih Tzu, snuggled near her feet, his calm personality enhancing the peaceful atmosphere and making it feel like home.
"I enjoy seeing him run back and forth," said Houston, an 89-year-old guest at the end-of-life home and a dog lover herself. "He doesn't bark very often."
For the staff, guests and families of Sloan Comfort Care Home, Arni has been - in the words of Executive Director Alex Lauer - a "wonderful piece of normalcy."
Sloan Comfort Care Home, which opened in 2020 on the grounds of St. Andrew Catholic Church in Sloan, has two beds for guests, providing free round-the-clock care to those in the final months of their lives.
In what can be an emotional environment, Arni is a welcome distraction. He's a conversation-starter with visiting families, and he's attentive to the home's guests. The home's staff and volunteers, who Arni follows around, have bonded with the dog, taking him for field trips, for walks and tracking his medications in his own binder just like they would any guest. He's not a therapy dog, but that doesn't mean he doesn't provide emotional support.
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Arni, too, is at Sloan Comfort Care Home to live out the rest of his life.
Lauer and Anna Hobler, a caregiver at Sloan Comfort Care Home, began co-fostering Arni in August after learning about him from the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter, where they both volunteer. Arni, who is somewhere between 8 and 10 years old, was at the shelter for more than a month, and he would wheeze and occasionally pass out on walks. After an X-ray, the shelter discovered Arni had congestive heart failure and started him on medication.
The shelter scrambled to find a hospice foster placement for him - and Lauer and Hobler had just the spot in mind.
'We need to get this dog'
Lauer started volunteering at the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter in 2016, while Hobler became a volunteer there about 2½ years ago.
Both learned about a friendly, older Shih Tzu with heart failure from a post in early August in the Facebook group for shelter volunteers.
The post included a photo and sought a hospice foster for the dog, who could live months or years depending on how he responded to medication.
The post tugged on the heartstrings of Lauer and Hobler.
At the next team meeting with her volunteer house managers Diane Bookhagen and Mary "Molly" Shea, Lauer brought up the "off the rails" possibility of fostering the dog and having him at Sloan Comfort Care Home.
The same day, Hobler made the same pitch to Bookhagen and Shea: "What about this crazy idea where we got a dog and we all take care of him together?"
Funny enough, the house managers told Hobler, Lauer had just pitched the same idea.
"We both had the exact same idea on the same day," recalled Hobler, who didn't know Lauer also volunteered at the shelter until that moment.
Right after the conversation, Hobler went to Lauer's office with a simple message: "Alex, we need to get this dog."
Before long, Lauer and her son headed to the shelter to look at the dog, who was in the corner of his crate, looking "so tiny and sad." Lauer called Hobler from the parking lot to say she thought the dog might be a good fit.
While he looked like a "hot mess," Lauer said the dog became excited when he got in the car on the way to Hobler's house. The plan was for him to stay with Hobler at first, to make sure he was a dog that could be around other people.
"He is a very good boy," Hobler said. "So he stayed with me for a few days, and then he started living at the house, and he's been doing really well."
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As for how his foster parents came up with his name: Arni is short for Angiotensin Receptor-Neprilysin Inhibitor, a guideline-directed treatment for heart failure in humans. Arni is on similar medications for dogs, the cost of which is covered by Friends of the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter, a nonprofit that financially supports the shelter.
Bookhagen said Arni has brightened the facility and made it even more like a home.
"Anything that can make it homelike is terrific, and he's been a perfect little dog," Bookhagen said. "He doesn't bark. He accepts visitors. He accepts all the new guests. He accepts the other dogs."
'A place for Arni'
Arni has beds all over Sloan Comfort Care Home, including in Lauer's office, the kitchen and the chapel. He's not a huge cuddler, but he is social, following staff wherever they go - the kitchen, where the caregivers are usually working, is a favorite of his. He occasionally even gets a bite of a cheeseburger.
Families of some of the guests have gotten attached to him. Some have brought Arni toys and treats. One family recently brought in a soap dispenser that looks just like Arni.
"It's Arni's house," Lauer said. "We're all just working here."
'A real blessing': Sloan Comfort Care Home provides death with dignity as it struggles to survive
Typically found in rural communities, comfort homes enlist volunteers and paid staff to provide round-the-clock support for those in the last three months of life.
Sloan Comfort Care Home, a nonprofit that relies on donations and fundraising to survive, is the only place of its kind in Erie County - even before Arni's arrival. The home provides its services at no charge to guests and their families, aiming to chip away at the inequities that exist in end-of-life care.
While the home's reach is limited with just two beds, 87 people have lived at Sloan Comfort Care Home since it opened four years ago. So far this year, the home has had 26 guests.
Staff and volunteers aim to provide comfortable end-of-life care outside of an institutional health care setting, and Arni's presence adds to that special homelike atmosphere.
Sloan Comfort Care Home is a place where guests have had their families over to eat chicken wings, drink beer and watch the Bills game. People have celebrated wedding anniversaries and birthdays there.
Here, people live out their final days in comfort.
Lauer told the story of another recent guest, who was from Western New York but had lived almost his entire adult life in Florida. As the guest was in his final weeks at Sloan Comfort Care Home, his brother and nephew drove to Florida to get the man's dog - a "beautiful, gigantic bear of a Lab," Lauer says. Once the dog arrived, the Lab was with him every moment until the minute he died.
"That's the kind of stuff that means a lot, to be able to provide that home environment," Lauer said. "And Arni is just part of that."
As Arni sat on guest Victoria Houston's bed recently, Houston said she's been treated "like a queen" at Sloan Comfort Care Home. Her own dog, Mr. Bill, has even come by for visits.
"I can't complain about being in this position," Houston said, "because I've lived a good life, and I haven't missed too much."
Staff and volunteers bond with guests. They converse regularly, learn about them and their families, get to know what they like to eat and even whether they cheat at Yahtzee.
They know their time is limited with each guest, and that can take an emotional toll.
Similarly, it will be difficult when they have to say goodbye to Arni, whether that is weeks, months or years from now.
Lauer and Hobler said it's been heartwarming to see everyone embrace Arni and collectively care for him. Arni, at the same time, is caring for all of them.
"This is just one dog, and we're just one unique sort of piece of a very big puzzle," Lauer said. "But it was just good timing, and lucky for us that we had a team that was willing to try something really different. And lucky for Arni, he's got the perfect personality to live in this house. Not every dog could do it."
"It just feels really good that we were able to find a place for Arni," Hobler said. "We're able to use our house to give him a space to have the end of life he deserves."
Jon Harris can be reached at 716-849-3482 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @ByJonHarris.
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