Cheryl Krause-Parello GSN’07

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Cheryl Krause-Parello’s ongoing research looks at dogs’ therapeutic value for child sex-abuse survivors, older veterans, and service members undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries.

Photography: 
Glenn J. Asakawa

In Cheryl Krause-Parello’s office stands a daily reminder of her mission as a nursing researcher: an eight-foot-tall flag stand bearing the Stars and Stripes. Krause-Parello GSN’07, an associate professor in the nursing school of the University of Colorado at Denver, is the founder and director of C-PAWW (Canines Providing Assistance to Wounded Warriors). The university research initiative seeks empirical support for a proposition Krause-Parello believes intuitively: that dogs can help comfort and heal suffering human beings, including military veterans coping with physical and emotional battle scars.

“It’s that reciprocal relationship and that unconditional love and commitment,” says Krause-Parello, a lifelong dog owner. “If there’s stress or something upsetting or something happy, they’re right there by your side, always looking out for you and having your back.”

Krause-Parello, who worked as a school nurse before starting her nursing Ph.D. at Rutgers University–Newark, had initially planned  to research teen pregnancy. But gazing at her beloved dachshund Samantha one day, Krause-Parello realized that it was Samantha who would get her through the years of work ahead.

Krause-Parello switched her research to human-animal relationships, completing a dissertation on the social and emotional support older adults receive from pet cats and dogs. The senior citizens she encountered at community centers would invite her home to meet their animals or proudly show off photos. One woman even broke her center’s no-pets rule and smuggled in her beloved cat, hidden under a blanket in a wheeled shopping basket.

“You could just see how important the animals were to them,” Krause-Parello says. “They’d describe them and tell stories.”

That initial project launched an expansive research agenda on the ways interactions with animals can help alleviate human suffering. Krause-Parello’s ongoing research looks at dogs’ therapeutic value for child sex-abuse survivors, older veterans, and service members undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries. She hopes her work will eventually spur changes in public policy, including enhanced federal funding for veterans’ service animals.

Her research on veterans has special meaning for Krause-Parello because she is married to a Marine Corps veteran, David Parello SAS’14, who graduated from Rutgers after a career as a New York City police detective. “This doesn’t seem like work to me, the things that I’m doing now with C-PAWW,” Krause-Parello says. “Every day, I just look forward to the next day to keep trying to make a difference.”