Her furry friend sits right next to her, helping her through every emotion going through her head. The smile they give to each other and all the responsibilities that come with owning a normal dog is the life of Mary Lauritzen as she prepares her pet to be a therapy dog.

“I think the best part about owning Penny is how much she has really helped out with Mary as far as helping her when she gets really upset,” Lauritzen’s mother Stephanie Combs said. “She makes Mary really happy when a lot of other things can not make her happy.”

Lauritzen and Combs, will be putting their two-year-old Siberian Husky Penny into Therapy dog training sometime soon. Penny has yet to be put into training because of her age. Dogs being trained have to be at least two years old and Penny only turned two recently, so she has yet to start.

Just because she’s not in therapy dog training now doesn’t mean that she isn’t being trained the typical dog commands like sit, stay and down. Lauritzen’s family tries to perfect these skills everyday for around an hour, using many treats, but not forcing her if she gets stubborn and refuses to continue.

“I don’t want to do an intense-intense training with her just because like, I want to give her some time to just be a dog too,” Lauritzen said. “Especially because she is just a puppy, which is something different than a lot of people would do. A lot of people when they know that they’re going to be a certain type of dog start training for that immediately. But I’m in no rush to get her to be a therapy dog.”

Getting any pet can be exciting, but getting something you have always wanted, and that is specifically for you can make you feel something more.

“There are different types of service dogs,” Lauritzen said. “There’s like personal therapy dogs but there’s also therapy dogs that are trained for others. Like at hospitals and stuff, they will bring animals into the sick kids and let them play for a bit. My therapy dog is different because she’s specialized to me, not everyone else.”

Huskies are dogs that have a lot of natural energy and need a lot of play time. Penny sometimes has the trouble of wanting to play during training or while Lauritzen is doing homework, but a lot of that energy gets put to use with many varieties of play time.

“Penny is definitely energetic but she also knows when something is wrong and she knows when something’s wrong with Mary,” Combs said. “And she knows what she needs to be there for.”

Therapy dogs are a real thing and people don’t just get them because they feel a little sad. People do go through things and have actual reasons to get anything that is able to help them through the bad times. Penny is that something.

“It’s something that my family thought would be a good idea, and even my doctors thought that it would be a good idea,” Lauritzen said. “It’s not like, ‘Haha I get depressed sometimes.’ It’s a lot deeper than that.”