The Hospital’s Beloved Giant Therapy Dog Is Slowing Down. His Owner Is Already Training the Puppy Who Will Take Over.

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For years, Wayne Chmelik and his Great Dane, Hulu, have been a familiar sight in the hallways of CentraCare St. Cloud Hospital in Minnesota, with Hulu’s towering stature stopping people in their tracks as he made his rounds offering comfort to patients. Now, as Hulu shows unmistakable signs of slowing down, Chmelik is already preparing for what comes next.

Hulu will turn 8 this spring, right around the average lifespan for a Great Dane, and the effects of age have become harder to ignore. His once solid black face shield has faded to gray, and his weight has dropped from around 185 pounds down to 153. Chmelik has been careful about how he describes what’s happening. He says Hulu isn’t dying, just slowing down the same way he himself has, dealing with arthritis in his hips that makes some days more difficult than others and leaves him without the endurance he once had.

Rather than wait until Hulu can no longer work, Chmelik has already begun training his eventual successor: a Great Dane puppy named Wren, granddaughter of Hulu’s late sister and fellow therapy dog, Tootsie. Wren weighed just 23 pounds at eight weeks old and has since grown to roughly 123 pounds at 12 months.

To prepare Wren for the unpredictable environment of hospital work, Chmelik has been taking her everywhere he can think of, from Home Depot to a local nursing home to busy public spaces like Crossroads, exposing her to new noises, smells, and the experience of strangers approaching her. He credits that steady, repeated exposure as the foundation of getting her ready for the job ahead.

At a nursing home visit, Wren spent time connecting with resident Carol Heitke, who cupped the puppy’s snout in her hands and kissed her forehead. Chmelik described that kind of intense, focused connection between a dog and a person as what handlers call a lock, a moment where nothing else in the room seems to exist except the two of them.

Chmelik has been involved with therapy dogs for about six years, and Great Danes have been part of his and his late wife Pat’s life for even longer, having bred and shown the dogs together throughout their 26-year marriage. That history makes Wren more than simply a replacement; she carries forward a lineage that’s already brought comfort to countless patients through Hulu and Tootsie before her.

For now, Hulu continues making his rounds at the hospital he’s called home for years, while Wren quietly logs the experiences that will one day let her walk those same hallways in his place.

Original story here.