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Emotional Support Dogs Have Arrived At Texas Shooting Site To Help People Cope

Emotional Support Dogs Have Arrived At Texas Shooting Site To Help People Cope

A charity has provided eight golden retrievers to bring some light into a dark and devastating situation.

Emotional support dogs have been sent to the site of America's latest mass shooting to help people cope with the tragedy.

The Lutheran Church Charities (LCC) K-9 Ministries has provided eight golden retrievers for anyone who might need some cheering up.

The LCC dogs have been sent from all over Texas as well as two from Oklahoma and Colorado.

The adorable animals have been stationed at the vigil that has sprung up in the wake of the Robb Elementary School tragedy.

An 18-year-old gunman stormed the school this week and shot dead 19 children and two adults before he was gunned down by police.

Twenty-one crosses have been erected close to the school and it's become a place where people from all over the country have travelled to pay their respects.

Jintak Han/ZUMA Press Wire

Bonnie Fear, LCC's K-9 crisis response coordinator, told Good Morning America their dogs can help ease people's stress and anxiety at a time of immense grief.

"We just see a lot of shock, crying, [people who are] distraught, especially coming in the day after a mass shooting," Fear said.

"People are not ready to process or listen or answer questions. So we just show up with the dogs."

"We listen if they talk. "We're silent.

"We let the dogs connect with people, and they can express their feelings at that time, and we're not counselors, so we are just present, standing with them in their sorrow."

The LCC dogs regularly get deployed around America when tragedy strikes.

Lutheran Church Charities

Golden retrievers were sent to Florida following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in 2018.

Seventeen people lost their lives when a 19-year-old former student, Nikolas Cruz, unloaded his AR-15 rifle in what was then the eighth deadliest mass shooting in contemporary US history.

According to the LCC website, these comfort dogs 'serve every day in the community in which they are placed and are dispatched in times of disaster and crisis to bring comfort to all those affected'.

"LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs were in New York and New Jersey visiting victims of Superstorm Sandy, and in Connecticut after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School," the site continues.

"Lutheran Church Charities currently has over 130 LCC K-9 Comfort Dogs serving in more than 27 states. LCC operates training facilities in Illinois and Nebraska."

Hopefully they can provide some light in Texas during this dark and devastating time.

Featured Image Credit: Lutheran Church Charities. Bob Daemmrich/Alamy Live News

Topics: News, US News