By David Slone
Times-Union
WARSAW — Leave it to a dog to be the star of the Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety meeting Friday, May 17.
Whitney Olson, mayor’s office administrative assistant, introduced Taima, a 7-year-old black labrador retriever. Olson is Taima’s handler.
“She’s been under my training for the last seven years. She now lives with Staci (Young), who is the other office assistant in the mayor’s office,” Olson explained. “I sit on the Wellness Committee for the city, and within the Wellness Committee we’ve really been promoting mental health for our employees and just the well-being physically, mentally, socially for all of our employees.”
A couple months ago, she said, all the Wellness Committee members submitted ideas of what they could bring to the city as a whole for city employees to benefit from.
“And, of course, with my training and background with my service dogs, I submitted a therapy dog program for the city, and Taima is the reason that we were able to take that program from paper to reality so quickly,” Olson said.
Taima has been in Mayor Jeff Grose’s office for about the last 2-1/2 to three weeks under a trial basis.
“And just her presence in the office, we’ve seen people come in and sit on the floor in suits with her,” Olson said.
Taima has her own calendar, and her request form goes live on Monday for city employees.
“So if the employees are experiencing a life crisis or a mental health break or anything that they need for stress relief, or just a pick-me-up, they can use the form to request her,” Olson said. “And if it’s something more serious, like a crisis intervention, then the form prevents all of their department from having to be involved.”
The request form would go straight to Olson. There’s an option on the request form that it be confidential or accommodating to the employee. “So if they just need the dog for personal reasons, they have it and nobody else needs to know,” she said.
Grose said he appreciated Olson’s efforts.
“I know there’s countless stakeholders in the community, the city, the county, private sector, wellness, mental health issues. I just really appreciate your skillset, stepping forward, helping me in the mayor’s office to show the community that this is something that is very, very important. It needs to be addressed and Taima can help with that,” he said.
Olson said they have a fun side for Taima, too.
“Because she’s a public-facing figure and she’s a dog, unlike the police dogs that can interact with our community, and she doesn’t really have a job or a service, we’re able to make her more public-facing and P.R. related.,” she said.
Taima has training cards that can be handed out to kids or other community members. On the back is a QR Code that can be scanned and will open up Taima’s official city Facebook page, which can be found under Taima — City of Warsaw Therapy Dog.
Taima’s email is [email protected].
Olson said they also made Taima’s paw made into a stamp.
Before giving Taima an oath of office, Grose said, “Whitney and I felt it was important, again, from my office, to message, not only to our own employees, but also the community, this is a good thing.”
After taking the oath, Taima “signed” the official paperwork with Olson stamping Taima’s paw print onto it.
