 All right, here's a cute puppy alert. Ascension Health St. Joseph Medical Center in Brainerd has developed a program bringing therapy dogs to patients to make them feel at ease and more at home. Our reporter Rachel Johnson has more. According to TherapyDoc International, the optimism and happiness that TherapyDoc visit can bring to a patient in the hospital cannot be measured by a doctor's insurance, but it can make all the difference in the world. Peyton is a therapy dog here at the hospital. We try to come in weekly and visit with the different patients and try and make them have a smile through the day. The program at Ascension Health in Brainerd has done just that. Usually about once a week, they'll come around on our unit and go room to room and see all the patients and hang out with them for a few minutes to half an hour each visit. The certified therapy dogs visit patients throughout the hospital, making people feel comforted and at ease. Peyton is a five and a half year old Havanese who's been doing therapy work for three and a half years. It's great. It's fun to do. I got the idea when my husband was in hospice and somebody came in every day with a dog and then later on when I got Peyton, I realized I had just this great personality and a dog. In order to be certified as a therapy dog, the owner and dog must go through a series of classes and pass a certification test. It's, it's strenuous. The test is strenuous and you've got to have a dog that has a personality for it. You can't, I don't think you can take every dog and make them a therapy dog. I think you can train them, but I don't think you can put that personality in them. The nurses and doctors at Ascension Health have seen an immense benefit to having the therapy dogs visit the hospital. When the therapy dogs come on our unit, you can see the patients light up. They are very happy to see a dog come in and they pet them and it seems to calm their mood and a lot of people have animals so they make them feel like they're at home. The program has been a success and Ascension hopes that therapy dogs like Peyton keep lifting spirits and providing comfort to patients for years to come. Reporting from Brainerd, Rachel Johnson, Lakeland News. According to the Mayo Clinic, animal assisted therapy is a growing trend with more and more hospitals adopting very similar programs. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.