Meet the Department’s New Emotional Support Therapist, Bello

With a gentle stride and soft, gleaming brown fur, Bello, a beautiful dog from Hadera’s municipal animal shelter, enters the open psychiatric ward at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. He's accompanied by Dr. Eyal Tadmor, Hadera's city veterinarian, and their arrival adds warmth to the bright hospital corridors. Dr. Idan Amshalom, Director of Mental Health Services at Hillel Yaffe, and Osnat Aharon, Head Nurse of the open psychiatric unit, come to greet them. But before handshakes can be exchanged, Bello's brown-black fur has already met the eager hands of a patient whose eyes light up. She's been hospitalized for over two weeks, and this is her second time meeting Bello. Dr. Amshalom explains that she's in a complex clinical condition and had been nearly catatonic much of the time before Bello started his visits. For three hours following his visits, she cuddles with him, pets him and has a huge smile on her face. 

Bello the dog in a therapy room at Hillel Yaffe with Dr. Eyal Tadmor, the veterinarian from Hadera's municipal animal shelter, Dr. Idan Amshalom, and nurse Osnat Aharon

Israel’s first service dog from an animal shelter

This is the first project of its kind in Israel, bringing together Hadera Municipality and Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. "Service dogs that assist with rehabilitation in various physical and mental areas already exist in health care facilities across Israel," said Dr. Tadmor. "As far as I know, Bello is the first in the country whose training and adaptation for this work began at a relatively late age and who came from a city animal shelter, after being brought there at about one year old." 

The connection between the two organizations - the municipality and Hillel Yaffe Medical Center - has existed for many years, given the hospital's location within Hadera, and has created numerous beneficial collaborative projects for the community and area residents. 

The special partnership between Dr. Tadmor and Dr. Amshalom began with a meeting of two professionals who share a passion and desire to help the community: Dr. Idan Amshalom is a psychiatrist who was appointed last year as Director of Mental Health Services at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. Dr. Tadmor is a veterinarian who is also a certified animal-assisted therapy trainer. 

"I've long recognized the potential in these 'invisible' dogs who were abandoned on the street and ended up at the shelter," explained Dr. Tadmor, "but the idea of using them for emotional support came about through my meeting with Dr. Amshalom." 

"This is something we built as we went along," added Dr. Amshalom. "After Eyal found a suitable dog at the shelter, one he also trained specifically for this purpose, we conducted a series of meetings to understand if it would be a good fit. Everything was done gradually, because when you bring a dog like this into a unit like this, you need to trust him one hundred percent." 

In Bello's case, he's an adult dog who is stable and calm. His interactions with people are truly heartfelt, creating a sense of mutual healing. The dog gets socialization, warmth and purpose, while patients receive a living being who is non-judgmental. His name, incidentally, comes from Hillel Yaffe - "bello" means beautiful in Italian, and he's certainly a beautiful dog by any measure. 

"A model like this doesn’t exist anywhere else in the country," they both said with pride. "Patient engagement with the dog is often more natural and seamless than with human staff members. We see that people who interact with the dog are less resistant to treatment. At Hillel Yaffe, people hospitalized in the open unit also need physical therapy, so there's a 'bonus' here, because, for example, a patient playing with the dog doesn't realize they're actually doing physical therapy at the same time. This enables therapeutic options that expand both mind and body." 

Treatment program and rehabilitation future

The Inpatient Psychiatric Unit at Hillel Yaffe has approximately 20 beds and treats patients with a wide range of conditions requiring mental health intervention, combined with physical treatment involving other departments and units as needed. Providing hospitalized patients with tools centered on emotional connection, physical activity and nonverbal communication is at the heart of what we do. 

"We're always looking for new and better treatment approaches for our patients," said Osnat Aharon, the unit's head nurse. She's sitting in a room with Dr. Amshalom, Dr. Tadmor, and two patients who can't stop petting Bello. "Bello's presence encourages 'initiated movement' - patients approach him on their own, moving them from a closed-off place to a place of expressing emotion toward someone who immediately returns affection, unconditionally." 

Returning to the patient who greeted Bello in the unit – "Her first meeting with him brought her out of her frozen state. She immediately began petting him and started crying. The dog simply brought her out of the closed place where she was," said Dr. Amshalom. "The entire staff cried with her. I went home that day completely moved by the breakthrough." 

The joint program is still in its early stages of development and connection. Patients in the unit already look forward to Bello's weekly visits, and the plan is for him to be present in individual or group sessions where he plays with patients or serves as a topic of conversation. Because he's a shelter dog rather than one raised to be a service dog, all visits to the unit currently take place with Dr. Tadmor and a professional staff member from the unit present. 

The vision for the future? It's already clear. The goal is for the dog to become a permanent part of the unit, arriving each morning for "work" with an adoptive staff member. "There are already quite a few interested people," said Dr. Amshalom with a smile. “At the end of the day, this is a story about two souls who need rehabilitation and find each other in the hospital corridors," Dr. Tadmor added. "The beginning of a happy ending for both sides."