The man sitting with his dying wife in a Broward Vitas Hospice room at first told Jana Thomas and her Shetland sheepdog Pogo not to come in.

But when Thomas put Pogo in bed beside the woman, she wrapped her arms around the dog, stroked his fur and began to grin.

``She hasn't been able to smile in two years,'' her husband told Thomas.

The woman died the next day, but Thomas soon received a letter from the husband thanking her for allowing him to see his wife smile one more time.

``I have so many stories like that,'' said Thomas, who has been making pet therapy rounds with Pogo for 11 years. ``It's just amazing what the animals can do.''

Thomas' Paws for Smiles program, which operates primarily in Broward's Memorial Healthcare System, is one of at least five pet therapy programs in South Florida.

Designed to bring smiles to suffering patients, the pups and their handlers travel to the rooms of patients at Miami Children's, Jackson Memorial, South Miami and Baptist hospitals in Miami-Dade, along with Memorial Manor, Memorial West, Memorial Pembroke, Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital and Vistas Hospice in Broward.

``We hear that the patients miss their own pets,'' said Nuria Claramunt, assistant director for community and volunteer resources at Miami Children's Hospital.

``It allows them to be loved unconditionally in stressful, scary moments,'' she said.

Miami Children's robust pet therapy program, which has been in existence for more than 15 years, features 14 dogs.

Among them: a 2-year-old Great Dane named Max that weighs 147 pounds and stands a towering six-foot two-inches from his hind legs.

``That's not a dog, that's a horse!'' patients and their families have said as they whipped out their iPhones to snap pictures as Max trotted by their rooms.

Max's human counterpart, Steve Bonwit, has been a volunteer at the hospital for 14 years.

When Bonwit was recovering at South Miami Hospital from abdominal surgery in 2009, a dog from the hospital's pet therapy program came into his room and lifted his spirits.

The visit got him thinking that Max would make a great therapy dog.

And so in February of this year, after six visits to a local nursing home to see how Max would react in such a setting, Bonwit began taking Max around the second floor of Miami Children's Hospital once a week for an hour to visit the orthopedic and cardiac patients.

``Max absolutely loves kids. They can pull on his tail, and he won't respond,'' said Bonwit, who added that his white Great Dane can sense when a patient has had surgery. He sniffs around and can detect which part of the patient's body has been worked on, and he will lie along the other side.

To participate in most pet therapy programs, dogs must be at least a year old, walk well on a leash and get along with other dogs.

They also must be well-groomed, with clipped nails, and have an up-to-date rabies vaccine and a negative fecal exam.

Thomas is a certified tester for the national organization, Therapy Dogs Inc. She takes potential therapy dogs on at least three visits to Memorial Manor nursing home.

If the dogs are well-behaved on their visits -- they have to be able to handle loud noises, crowded rooms and lots of petting -- they ``graduate'' and can begin working in a local pet therapy program.

The graduates' owners must pay $35 for national registration, which covers insurance.