One of the newer members of the Falcon family is Ghost, a therapy dog who will ultimately serve the whole campus.
J.C. Ausmus, an assistant professor of counseling and interim director of university mental health and wellness, is Ghost’s mom.
She previously had a support animal named Goggles who passed away in April.
“I’ve had an emotional support animal myself since I was 17. … I have pretty severe anxiety myself and I lost him in April and I noticed a steep decline in my mental health. My best friend and my mom both like we’re like we need to get you a dog. Your mental health is so much better when you have something to take care of, so my parents kind of surprised me with him over Thanksgiving break when I went home to … Kentucky,” Ausmus said.
Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Corey Benson said he’d heard Ausmus was getting a dog and wanted to know how she’d feel about Ghost being a therapy dog for UTPB.
She wanted to see if he had the personality for it first.
“He loves people. He comes he comes to school with me least once a week. He sits in my classes with me. He’s gone on a couple of crisis calls for some suicidality so far and has done amazing,” Ausmus said.
Ghost is a 7-month-old white husky. He’s going through his basic obedience training and will test for his Canine Good Citizen and then test for his therapy dog certificate with the Alliance for Therapy Dogs when he hits a year old in July.
“He’s got a lot of energy and a lot of things to say all the time,” Ausmus said. “He loves people, loves students, loves giving kisses. That’s his thing.”
Once he is certified, she’ll be able to take Ghost to school events. Right now, you can see him walking around on campus and he goes to some events, but not all because he’s still a puppy.
“You’ll see him up in the counseling center, so he’ll be available for students to come in, come pet, come love on. Also, he may get involved in the counseling practicum clinic … so members in the community can come hang out with him, as well,” Ausmus said.
She would also like to take Ghost to hospitals and retirement communities. On a recent Monday, Ghost was a little rowdy because he hadn’t taken his long walk yet. Ausmus said he usually logs 100 minutes of walking and running daily.
Different dogs serve different purposes. Service dogs have to be let into certain buildings and they have a specific medical purpose.
Emotional support animals are just for one person for mental health matters and therapy dogs “basically get love from everyone, support everyone. It doesn’t matter who,” she said.
Ausmus said she was planning to train her dog Goggles to become a therapy dog, but he didn’t have the personality for it.
“He loved me; he didn’t love other people. But he (Ghost) loves everyone, as you can tell,” she said.
Ausmus said there has been a lot of research done on therapy animals.
“A lot of college counseling centers are starting to incorporate them into their services. I worked at a college counseling center when I was I my master’s program in Indiana. We had a therapy dog come once a week and hang out in the counseling center, a golden retriever named Jed and the students absolutely went wild over him. Then we also had an equine therapy program where one of our counselors worked on a ranch. She had a bunch of horses, so we would bus the kids out to the farm around midterms, finals, and let them go hang out with the horses for an hour, hour and a half,” Ausmus said.
Ghost will be around during exams at UTPB.
He hangs out with Benson, President Sandra Woodley, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Susan Ganter and Senior Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Becky Spurlock.
Benson is Ghost’s emergency contact person.
Ausmus earned her bachelor’s degree in English and psychology from the University of Kentucky; her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling and a master’s in sports psychology from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and she did her PhD in counseling education at Auburn University.
She has been at UTPB since August.
“I came because I loved the master’s program here. I love that we have a practicum clinic,” which she believes trains prepares students well, Ausmus said.
She has always grown up with dogs.
“We always had two or three running around,” Ausmus said.
