Woody Has His Day : After 10 Years of Helping Kids, a Dedicated Dog Retires

Woody, the dog who has comforted, protected and entertained thousands of physically or mentally abused children, will retire next week after 10 years of service at Orangewood Children’s Home.

“Woody’s been a big part of our life here,” said John Aliberti, a training coordinator who often patrolled the home’s grounds on City Drive late at night with Woody. “He’s very friendly to every child here. He’ll bark at people who aren’t supposed to be here, but he’s never barked at any child.”

Woodrow (Woody) Theemling, a 10-year-old, 90-pound yellow Labrador mix, was brought to the home in 1985 by a staff member who found him on the side of a freeway, Aliberti said. Since then, Woody has become notorious for his gentleness around children, his ferociousness toward strangers and his lightning-quick cat chases around the 235-bed shelter.

“Woody has mauled some of the best balls that ever came into this facility,” said Rick Bazant, community programs specialist. “He’s like any other dog. Don’t leave a baseball or anything like that lying around because it will disappear. He will gnaw it up and hand it back to you.”

One of Woody’s favorite activities at the shelter was snack time. With 151 children eating snacks at the same time, Woody often got his fill of cookies, apples and candy. He ate so many graham crackers that staff members figured he was sick of them when he switched to fruit, said Tammy Higuera, a counselor.

“A child would be standing out in the field, eating his snack, holding an apple in the other hand and Woody would come up behind him and take the apple,” Higuera said. “It was so cute. When he started eating fruit, we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this dog is getting healthy.’ ”

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Woody, whose name is short for Orangewood and whose last name comes from Robert Theemling, the home’s former director, will move in permanently with Higuera, her daughter and their black Labrador at their home in Cypress, where he has been living for the past month.

Though Woody likes to play, he has a gentleness that makes even the most frightened child take to him, “like a fish to water,” Bazant said.

The home shelters more than 3,000 abused toddlers to teen-agers a year. Over the years, Woody has comforted thousands of sexually, physically and mentally abused children.

“We’d bring small children in who were really upset and crying and when the children see him, it’s just, ‘Doggy! Doggy!’ and they would run to him,” Higuera said. “He wouldn’t run away from them. It was like he had a sense they needed him.”

Sometimes, Woody was more therapeutic than some of the psychologists, she added.

“I had one girl sometime back who was sexually abused and having a lot of nightmares,” Higuera said. “She would come out and find Woody at night and sit with him, and pet him and cry. She found peace in talking to him.”

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In his younger days, children would crawl all over Woody. Some of the preschoolers would climb on his back and ride him like a horse. Others would dress him and sneak him vegetables under the table, Bazant said.

“To see there’s a dog there takes a lot of the edge off of being someplace you don’t want to be,” Bazant said. “He just seems to be very proud of what he does. He’ll nuzzle up to kids who need to be talked to. He’ll pop his head up like, ‘OK, I’m here, pay attention to me now.’ You get 20 kids running up and hugging him. He’ll have two or three kids lying on him and that just doesn’t faze him.”

Officials at the home decided it was time for Woody to retire when he began showing signs of arthritis and digestive problems. Instead of candy bars, cookies and snacks, he is now on a special high-protein kidney diet, Higuera said.

“It was getting so we had to protect him more and more from the children,” she said.

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For most of his stay at the home, Woody slept on his own pillow in the junior boy’s cottage. He also had an area by a tree behind the last cottage where he buried his bones, she said.

On Tuesday, Woody will receive a special send-off from more than 250 children, staff and county officials.

For his years of service at Orangewood, Woody will receive free medical care from his friends at the animal shelter next to the home, Higuera said.

Orangewood’s new mascot will be O’Henry, a 4-year-old chocolate Labrador donated to the home by a family that moved out of state.

“It’s going to be real tough to see Woody go,” Bazant said. “Woody’s done his duty and it’s time for him to get his relaxation.”