The Elm

When the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to Caroline Benzel’s hospital visits with her therapy dog Loki, the University of Maryland School of Medicine student unleashed her energy and compassion into helping front-line workers in a different way. 

Benzel and her 2-year-old Rottweiler, affectionately nicknamed “Dogtor” Loki, took to FaceTime and Skype to continue virtual therapy sessions with health care workers at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), some of whom were working with patients fighting the virus. 

Benzel noticed during the sessions the “wear and tear” that personal protection equipment was causing. So she started Dogtor Loki’s Hero Healing Kits, distributing much-needed supplies such as lotion, powder, Vaseline, lip balm, instant coffee, and tea to front-line workers.  

“We try to include items that we thought were not only helpful and functional but also could be easily kept on a person when they were working,” she said. 

So far, she said she’s distributed over 4,000 kits to Maryland hospitals, police departments (including the UMB Police Department), and fire stations, and her work has inspired others in eight states. She said the nationwide efforts have raised more than $75,000.  

Benzel said staff who have received kits have told her “not only were the items so functional and helpful, they also said that it was meaningful to them that somebody took the time to put together a care package.” 

Stacy Foertsch, BSN, RN, cardiac surgery ICU manager at UMMC whose unit participates in therapy visits with Loki, agreed. “Caroline brought our ICU Hero Healing Kits, which were given out to the entire team,” she said. “Everyone was grateful and loved that it came from Caroline and Loki.”  

Benzel’s efforts got a boost recently when she appeared on Katie Couric’s “The Bright Side” video series, where Couric surprised her with a $10,000 donation from Ally bank. Half will go to UMMC to help buy personal protection equipment and food for front-line workers, and the other half will go to distributing more Hero Healing Kits. 

Loki is the face of the campaign and has become a bit of a “cult hero,” with her own Instagram and Facebook accounts and more than 13,000 combined followers (dogtor.loki). The kits include a photo of Loki in her doctor’s coat and feature a heartfelt thank you to the front-line workers: “Your job isn’t always easy, but just know you are incredible and caring and compassionate and selfless. Thank you for being our hero.” 

Benzel adopted Loki the same week she was accepted into medical school in fall 2017. She had lost her dog to cancer a few months earlier, and she knew she wanted her next to be a therapy dog. Benzel, who had volunteered for about a decade with rescue dog organizations, had been inspired to undertake the work when her grandfather was hospitalized for more than a month during the holidays. 

“He was struggling emotionally and mentally. … He was so unhappy being there,” she said.  

“When the therapy dogs would come in, that would literally turn his whole day, let alone maybe his whole week, around. I just remember after doing that, I told myself the next dog I got, no matter where I got it from, I was going to make it a therapy dog.” 

Loki seemed like a natural for the work even as a puppy, Benzel said. 

“I had the sense that right out of the gate she was going to make a good therapy dog,” Benzel said. “Within the first hour or so, with the way I could handle her, I was like she’s going to make a great working dog. She’s very smart, and she’s very manageable. If you picked her up and she didn’t want to be in your arms, she wouldn’t fight you. … She was very patient, even at a young age.” 

Benzel said she and Loki, who sports scrubs and a white doctor’s coat that the UMMC staff had custom-made for her, spend a lot of time with long-term patients. 

“I have a tendency to focus on the more downtrodden patients, the patients who are in a really bad way, the patients who don’t have family members visiting them as regularly as they would hope,” she said. “Hanging out with a dog and having a conversation with a friendly person can be a turnaround for them.” 

Foertsch said that Loki greets patients “with lots of love.”  

“Loki has been known to climb in bed next to an acutely ill patient upon Caroline’s commands, and the patient immediately lights up,” she said. “Patients share stories of their dogs or childhood memories of a pet and for a short period of time they can forget about their pain and medical condition. These visits bring comfort and normalcy to our sick cardiac population.”  

Benzel, 30, described dog therapy as “a game changer for people.” 

Loki “is a very empathetic dog and she seems to read situations really well. … Loki will make direct eye contact with patients ... and it comforts them,” she said.  

“There’s something that normalizes a hospital room for the patients, when just the sensation of feeling a dog’s fur, looking into an animal’s eyes, it’s just such a sense of comfort and a destressor for them. It truly is a whole other way to make them feel at home even though they aren’t.” 

Loki is now facing health issues of her own. She had ACL surgery in late February, an injury that is common in Rottweilers, and had surgery on her other ACL today. She also underwent eye surgery for a condition called entropion, where the eyelid starts to turn inward, potentially causing corneal scarring, ulcers, and blindness.  

Benzel, a second-year medical student who lives in Pigtown in Southwest Baltimore, said hospital staff paid almost entirely for Loki’s first surgery. She also set up a GoFundMe page for the second surgeries and had the amount she needed — $4,100 — in about 36 hours. She hopes she and Loki can resume their therapy work in eight weeks, when she expects Loki will be able to return to light duty. And she’s hopeful that their rounds then will be able to be held in person if restrictions related to the virus are lifted.  

Benzel is continuing her kit efforts as well with the donation from Ally. She plans to make and distribute another 1,000 kits in the Baltimore area.  

“It was pretty emotional,” she said of the Ally donation. “It felt like it was justifying the amount of work that myself and other people have been doing to try to get these together.” 

If you would like to donate to Dogtor Loki’s Hero Healing Kits, you can purchase items through the Amazon wish list or direct message Benzel on Instagram or Facebook for her Venmo to send cash. Benzel said she particularly needs items such as Gold Bond powder and Chapstick that Amazon puts purchasing limits on.