Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital has a new furry employee ready to help kids stay calm during their hospital visits.
Meet Golden Delicious. The 2-year-old golden retriever, nicknamed Goldie, is Memorial Healthcare System’s newest therapy dog. The pup underwent two years of training with nonprofit Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities, or ECAD, to get ready for his new role at the Hollywood hospital.
Aniyah Richardson, left, and Mariana Villasmil, right, patients at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital pet Golden Delicious aka “Goldie”, the new therapy dog, on Thursday, May 23, 2024, at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. Goldie will join his uncle, Freedom, as part of the hospital’s Animal Assisted Therapy program. Alie Skowronski askowronski@miamiherald.com
Goldie, who comes from a family of therapy dogs and is Memorial’s sixth full-time therapy dog, will be tasked with giving kids hugs and making them smile.
Experts say petting and interacting with dogs can help reduce stress, fear and anxiety in patients. Goldie is set to work eight-hour shifts at the children’s hospital, with breaks and naps through the day.
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow. Support my work with a digital subscription
