Research has shown that 30 to 40 million Americans avoid the dentist entirely because of dental anxiety.  The number is even larger if you consider all those who are able to go to the dentist but then experience some degree of anxiety during their dental visits. At McNeely and Mallette Family Dental Group, we are always looking for new, innovative ways to ensure that our dental patients, adults and children, have the best dental experience possible! We are working together with the non- profit organization, paws4people® foundation, to bring Animal Assisted Intervention to our dental practice, utilizing a highly trained Facility Dog, ATKINS. Animal Assisted Intervention is proven to lower heart rate, reduce blood pressure and mitigate the symptoms of anxiety in general.

ATKINS assists with new-patient exams, dental hygiene appointments, and restorative appointments, enabling full treatment plans to be completed. Anxious patients begin to schedule preventive care for the first time in their lives. ATKINS has assisted patients who have dental anxiety but come to the dentist on a regular basis as well as with patients who simply love dogs; Animal-assisted intervention (AAI) makes their dental visits more enjoyable. Pediatric patients love her! ATKINS walks them back to the dental chair, and she will model how to have their teeth examined. She jumps up in the chair, gets her own patient napkin and has her teeth checked with a mirror. At the end of the appointment ATKINS loves to show off some of her fun commands like fist bump, turn, wave and roll! She even has a special basket that she uses to bring them their toothbrush.

ATKINS is a yellow Labrador Retriever who was raised and trained by the paws4people®  foundation. ATKINS began her training when she was only a few weeks old. She knows over 100 commands and has been specifically trained to mitigate dental anxiety for adult and pediatric patients. Please visit paws4people.org…Click to open link in a new tab…  to learn more about the training of their Assistance Dogs and Facility Dogs.

Let our team know that you would like to schedule your appointment on a day that ATKINS is working. You will definitely be able to spend time with her but we do, however, triage where her assistance is needed the most throughout the day. Each patient isn’t guaranteed that ATKINS will be with them during their entire appointment.

ATKINS lives with her Primary Handler, Barbara Kucera, a dental hygienist, and goes home with her at the end of the day. She spends evenings and weekends with the Kucera family. When she isn’t working, ATKINS is a typical dog playing and doing fun dog things with the Kucera family and their other pets.

A dental office is a clean environment, not a sterile environment. An example of a sterile environment would be a hospital surgical setting. Patients in non-sterile settings enter the treatment area with germs on their clothes, on their skin and in their hair. When ATKINS assists with a patient, she is either on the patient’s lap, at the foot of the dental chair or on the floor near the patient, several feet from the patient’s mouth and sterile instruments being used.

Please let our front office team know of your concern and our team will make sure that your appointment takes place in a separate area of the office where our Facility Dog, ATKINS, is working.