While visiting Valley Forge High School in Parma Heights the day after an 18-year-old student took her life in the schools’ cafeteria on April 20, Shirley Graziano, the president and founder of Crisis Canine Corps (CCC), and therapy dog Zodiac noticed two young girls in the library.
One of the girls went to the counseling service the school was providing in the library, while the shyer one approached Zodiac and began petting him.
“Then she started talking to me and explaining that she knew this student, she was 10 feet away when the gun went off and started going into all the details of what happened as she’s running her fingers through Zodiac’s hair,” Graziano said. “She’s just looking down. She’s not looking at my face, so she’s telling it to him.”
The student spoke to Zodiac for about 25 minutes, and once she was done Graziano encouraged the girl to go speak to the counselor.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m guessing that you came in here because you were brave enough to go and talk to somebody about your experience,” Graziano said,” and she shook her head and I said, ‘Well, I was talking to that young counselor over there with the turtleneck on … and she seemed really cool and really hip. How about if we escort you over and then you and her can talk?’”
Understanding that people may need help while processing traumatic experiences, Graziano founded CCC to offer people solace and care during this difficult stage.
Not a far-fetched idea
Being a former interior designer and nail technician, Graziano never envisioned being a therapy dog handler. She had always loved Akitas so when her first rescued Akita, Zeus, got older, she adopted Zodiac at 7.5 weeks old.
She wanted to adopt Zodiac while Zeus was still around to mentor the new pup so he could show him things like how to behave while walking down the street.
“We started that way and it was about four months in with my trainer and the trainer said to me, ‘If Zodiac keeps up this demeanor and this personality, you should train him to be a therapy dog,’” Graziano said.
The idea of Zodiac being a therapy dog didn’t seem far-fetched to Graziano. Zodiac was already mastering obedience commands, making him qualified to undergo therapy dog training.
For example, while visiting Lowe’s, Graziano would tell the Akita pup to sit on a pile of plywood and to remain there as she began to walk away. The pup stayed on the pile of wood, even as other people walked by.
“He was just like, ‘Whateve. I’m good,” she said. “They can’t be reactive. They can’t be shaking. They can’t be ‘barky’ — people refer to it as they’re talking — they just can’t do that. They can’t be jumpy.”
Therapy dogs aren’t able to receive certification until they’re a year old, prompting the Graziano and Zodiac to work towards getting the Akita trained. Then in 2021, Zodiac was cleared to begin working officially as a therapy dog.
Until March 2026, they were a part of a New Jersey-based nonprofit therapy dog organization, but decided to leave as Graziano had the desire to start a locally-based practice. She didn’t ask any of her fellow former volunteers from the previous organizations to join her, they simply joined her.
“I just explained that I was doing this and they’re like, ‘OK, well, we’re going to go with you because we never interact with anyone from the other organization because they’re out of state,’” she said. “So, I felt I had a good enough base and it was just time.”
Upon hearing about Graziano’s new venture, Kayla Georgio, communications and outreach board chair for CCC, offered to help her create the organization’s website and social media accounts.
She had known Graziano through her mother, Mary Georgio, who is the owner of Strongsville-based Highland Akitas, an American Kennel Club-supported Akita breeding kennel.
Georgio had always wanted to work in the therapy dog field, but after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis, she had to temporarily put those plans on a pause and moved back home with her parents.
In 2025, Georgio’s parents had a litter of Akita pups and noticed something special in one pup in particular, Rosco. The parents then asked Georgio if she would be able to train Rosco to become a CCC therapy dog.
“He senses things before you even know it. He picked up on my MS symptoms before I even started training him,” she said. “I mean, he was just the most magical dog I [have] ever seen or known or had the ability to call my own.”
To begin Rosco’s training, Georgio contacted Graziano for guidance, which led the pair and their canines to form a mentor-trainee relationship.
From their training, Georgio realized Rosco also had the intelligence to be a service dog, prompting the pair to also begin working on mobility service dog training.
“The more that I get involved with Crisis Canine Corps, the more it just feels like a calling, like this where I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to be doing — to help people during their darkest moments,” she said.
Lending a paw
Now operating a local service, providing specialized therapy, Graziano and the other CCC handlers made it their mission to offer relief during times of distress in Ohio and Virginia.
This led to CCC’s second deployment at Valley Forge High School, being stationed in the school’s classrooms, media center and cafeteria to provide students and staff with relief during their seven-day long visit.
Two days after Zodiac and Graziano met the two girls, while in one of the school’s hallways, someone tapped Graziano on the shoulder and called out to Zodiac.
She turned around to discover the shy girl who informed her that she returned to class and will continue to go to counseling.
“It’s magical, and it has nothing to do with us. I always tell people, ‘They won’t necessarily remember Zodiac’s name, — they never ask mine — they know they saw the dog with the purple tail,’” Graziano said.
A few days later, 23-year-old Christian Byrant from Texas shot 61-year-old Costco employee Randolph Corrigan at the Strongsville Costco on April 25.
Upon hearing the news, Graziano, and other CCC handlers decided to deploy themselves at Costco in Strongsville for eight days, starting the morning after the shooting at 9:30 a.m.
“I shop there all the time and I’m like, ‘This is our people. This is our store. This is our people. We have to go,’” she said. “So, we weren’t exactly waiting for an invitation, we just said, ‘They need us. We’re going.’”
After Costco marked the organization’s third deployment, CCC visited Brunswick Middle School in June, following the death of 13-year-old student Elise Paine’s from an unexpected medical emergency on June 19. The middle school deployment would be Georgio and Rosco’s first one.
After visiting the school on the morning of June 22, the team returned that evening to offer support to the school’s drama club, an organization where Paine had been an active member.
During this time, a group of kids surrounded Rosco, and as they petted him smiles grew across their faces.
Later on in the evening, Georgio recalled how a faculty member involved in the drama club made a speech to students, while fighting back tears. This prompted Rosco to butt up against her, indicating that he wanted to go and console the faculty member.
“He could sense and feel the pain and the sadness that she was feeling, while she was talking,” she said, “and he wanted to go up there so bad just to go comfort her.”
Following this, CCC was also stationed at Paine’s visitation at Jardine Funeral Home in Strongsville on June 24. The pups were found to the right of the entrance area for mourners.
Toward the end of the visitation, Georgio and Rosco noticed a girl from the drama club crying alongside her mother who was also tearing up, causing Georgio to sit the pair down with Rosco to calm them down.
“Rosco took care of both of them at the same time, and they’re petting him and hugging him,” she said, “and it’s those moments that make the biggest impact on you that you know you’re making a difference.”
The science behind puppy love
Being a child psychologist for over 50 years and studying the field of human-animal interaction and animal-assisted interventions, Dr. Aubrey Fine knows why people, especially children, feel more inclined to open up to animals.
“Being around a comforting animal to you acts almost like that social lubricant that allows you to feel more confident in the receiver hearing your information,” he said. “Sometimes when you talk, you don’t even really want the person to talk back to you — you just want them to listen.”
The California-based therapist has seen first hand how animals will encourage people to come out of their shells. While working with a little girl dealing with anxiety, a therapy dog sat next to the child and would bop her head up to signal to the child that she could confine to Fine.
Within a week or two of their initial visit, the girl began to cut her arm and thighs prompting her to be hospitalized.
When Fine and the therapy dog saw the girl again, he asked her to show him her scars and when the dog saw them, she went over to the girl and began licking her arm.
“She started to cry and fell to the ground and embraced the dog, and that was really the beginning of our ability to communicate because she opened up,” he said, “and we did a lot of things over the course of time to help change and get her to feel more competent and comfortable.”
Therapy animals help encourage engagement in therapy sessions as “they help with opening up a person’s personal space, because the human feels much more comfortable in doing so,” Fine said.
Animals often become the perfect listener as they don’t judge, however, a level of comfort is required to motivate the conversation.
When an individual gazes into an animal’s eyes, oxytocin, a natural hormone that promotes positive feelings and is known as the “love hormone,” will fluctuate and spike. This can then impact serotonin levels and dopamine, he added.
Because eyes serve as a “window to the soul,” after making eye contact, animals will feel at ease around a person and the person will become willing to open up.
A diamond in the ruff
Through their work CCC provides Ohioans with the opportunity to feel comforted during challenging times, but the nonprofit’s work extends beyond giving people a listening ear.
For Graziano, the organization serves as the “piece of the puzzle that then sends people looking for normalcy,” as the puppies and handlers reassure them that they can seek help and embrace their feelings of upset.
This then leads to them discovering their new normalcy, which can entail therapy as well as returning to their jobs or schools.
“It’s going to be a new normal. It’s never going to be the same. They will be forever changed, but we’re the first piece to getting people to move forward,” she said.
In support of Graziano’s mission to help people adapt to their new normal, Georgio’s mother recently donated Zendaya, an Akita puppy who is Rosco’s half sister, to the organization. Zodiac will mentor Zendaya to take his place when he retires.
“I think it’s important the type of work that we do,” Georgio said. “It’s because I feel it’s healing the world in a subtle way.”
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