One such accommodating ridgeback is Pepper, who lives in Monte Sereno and visits Mission Oaks Hospital on a weekly basis.

Pepper started out as a Furry Friend—one who, along with a half-dozen other pets, took a turn at Good Samaritan Hospital's skilled-nursing unit at Mission Oaks monthly. But Pepper's owner, Anna Andrade, decided Pepper's hospital pace needed to be accelerated, so she signed them both up for training as hospital volunteers.

Now Pepper and her mistress can visit the hospital more often—which means weekly, in Pepper's case, now that dog and trainer have passed a series of training and orientation classes. Pepper's certificates include a "canine good citizen" certificate, a herding certificate and a lure coursing certificate.

Pepper is also a card-carrying member of Therapy Dogs, International. Andrade, too, had to take training in order to become a certified Good Sam volunteer. The two stop in each hospital doorway to check if the patient wants to have a four-legged visitor. Not all patients are dog lovers, of course, and some may be too sick to want to see anyone, much less someone as large as Pepper. But most are delighted to have a different sort of visitor.

"Their faces light up," says Andrade about her dog's effect on people. "It's incredible. A dog acts as a doorbell," what with his ability to gain entry and elicit animated conversation, even from those who may have been despondent before his arrival on the scene.

Indeed, Pepper has been turning heads ever since he joined Andrade and her husband, Ricardo Moreno, as part of the family 1¹/2 years ago. "He always attracts attention. People stop their cars to say, 'What a lovely dog,' " his mistress relates.

The Morenos had both admired the breed, little known in their native Brazil. They were introduced to a ridgeback when they were house hunting in Sao Paulo, shortly before they were married. But then they were abruptly uprooted: Ricardo was transferred to the United States two weeks before their wedding.

So the new couple was faced with a new living condition—marriage—and a new country, all in one fell swoop. Ricardo is a sales manager at Cisco—the same position he held in Brazil. The bride was able to transfer with her company, Hewlett Packard, though her position changed.

Once the couple settled into their new surroundings, they decided to begin the search for a dog. Through the wonders of the Internet ("We learn so much from the Internet," Anna says) they found just what they were looking for from a breeder in Pacific Grove.

And through becoming dog owners, they've gained a whole new circle of friends—other owners of ridgebacks, most of whom adopted Pepper's brothers. The couple and the new dog take lengthy walks together—downtown, along the Los Gatos Creek Trail, through the Fremont Older Open Space Preserve.

Pepper invariably receives more than a typical share of admiring glances and comments. One day in downtown Los Gatos, a toddler with Down syndrome spotted Pepper and went berserk with excitement. Her father was holding her protectively, not knowing what to expect from an encounter with a dog. But the child couldn't be contained, so she was finally released, to get on eye level with Pepper and instantly make warm friends. The parents couldn't thank the Morenos enough, Anna remembers. "It was then that I knew this dog had to help people. He has to be a therapy dog."

And Anna was itching for public service, too. "I missed the feeling of helping people that I had had in Brazil." There she taught two classes of 7-year-olds every third Sunday. Each class was made up of as many as 50 children, and she had but one helper.

The children were from very poor families, often headed by single mothers. Even hugs were few and far between because families were large and the mother was often supporting the entire brood, so her time and energy were in short supply.

One of the class objectives was to teach the children how to help their mother by caring for younger siblings. The new Los Gatan found she very much missed these sessions and the way they made her feel about herself—that she was contributing to something, making a difference.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Pepper wears an ID tag to prove that he's an official Good Sam volunteer.

For starters, Pepper had to get used to wheelchairs, IV tubes and all of the thrumming machines that are standard equipment in today's hospitals. He had to learn to quietly and unobtrusively make his way through a tangle of wheels, tubes and whirring accessories.

He had to stand still with a trainer for 10 minutes while his owner was out of sight—no easy task for a pet that is fundamentally and eternally protective of his master. He had to learn not to ever take food from anyone, even though the breed is extremely food-oriented.

Indeed, it's common knowledge among ridgeback experts that if a ridgeback is becoming fussy about eating, it's imperative to call the vet, because this characteristic is entirely uncharacteristic of the breed. This breed is food-obsessed, one could say. But there is to be no snatching from patient trays or even accepting offerings of handouts from patients.

"People always want to give him something," Anna says. "Food, especially. But that is strictly forbidden. We don't feed him table scraps or anything we may have eaten. He is allowed to eat in one place, and one place only." Pepper is especially enamored of peanut butter and cheese, incidentally.

Historically, ridgebacks were trained in South Africa to hunt lions, so the hunting instinct is very much in their blood. But on the walks the Morenos and Pepper take, when a deer is spotted, Pepper doesn't strain at his leash, whereas one of his brothers, along on the walk, may be hard to contain.

Even after Pepper is released and has bounded off, he will get to the edge of the wooded area, look back at Anna and decide against any pursuit of game. Instead, he comes back to her side. "I am amazed. It is incredible," she says. "It goes against all his instincts."

But then, the breed is also renowned for its protectiveness. "We're his responsibility" is the way Anna defines her dog's psychological makeup. "He lives to please us."

Another ridgeback trait is intelligence. "He's smarter than we are," says his owner without exaggeration. "If we are having a fight, even if no angry words have been exchanged, no voices raised, Pepper will go from Ricardo, upstairs, to me, on the first floor. Back and forth, up and down. As if to say, 'Please make up.'

"One time when I was sick, confined to bed, he would lay his head on the bed in sympathy. He knows when we are getting ready to go out without him. He knows when Ricardo is due home from work. I don't know how he knows all this. And he's there at the door to greet him. Unlike me, who may still be upstairs."

She adds, "He's taught me more than I've ever taught him. If we can only listen [to his messages]. He accepts us exactly as we are. If he's displeased us in any way, he's so contrite, his tail twisting back and forth, as if to say 'I'm sorry.' He makes our lives so much more interesting. He's always ready to have fun."

His mistress took a sabbatical from work when Pepper joined the household—in order to house-train and bond with him as strongly as possible, as strongly as the breed requires for obedience training. Pepper was eight weeks old. There were only two accidents, as Anna remembers his house-training.

"Ridgebacks have strong personalities so you must build a strong bond in the beginning so that they will mind you implicitly, without question," she explains. "He wants to make us happy. He's a big sugar pot, affectionate and loving with his family but reserved and shy with others.

"Pepper has changed our lives completely, brought us so much joy. Before, we were so work-oriented. He makes life so much better. Now we have an extended family."

Sara and Craig Robinson of Los Gatos, for example, own Baron, one of Pepper's brothers, and the couples get together frequently.

Just before the Morenos left for Brazil for Christmas, one of the patients at Mission Oaks urged Anna to come back the next day with Pepper. But she couldn't. And when she did return after the holiday, the woman was no longer there.

"That broke my heart. I don't know what happened to her." Most of the patients in the unit she visits don't get better, aren't released home.

"Because Pepper loves children and I love children, I've tried to find a children's ward that wants us to visit." But so far, no luck. The Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford already has as many pet visitors as it can handle.

Meanwhile, the Morenos will continue to bring unquestioning canine love to the infirm and elderly. Pepper won't let them down.

Furry Friends has many friends

Madeline and Michelle Nelson of Los Gatos are part of Furry Friends. They visit the Meadows, a retirement living complex, every month. Madeline is a 2¹/2-year-old Rottweiler. She's the biggest dog in the contingent that goes to the Meadows.

Michelle attests to the fact that people who have ceased responding to most stimuli do respond to dogs. When she took a patient's hand and put it on Madeline's back, the woman couldn't talk, but "she got a big smile on her face and I knew that we had made her day."

Madeline knows exactly where to go, and, even though her patients may have failing memories, they treat her like an old friend. Michelle heard about Furry Friends through Bark in the Park, a regular gathering of dogs and owners, and soon began the training.

The Nelson females participated in the Furry Friends 5K fun walk at Los Gatos Creek Trail, a benefit to raise money for PAT (Pet Assisted Therapy), the rescue and adoption agency. Furry Friends is an all-volunteer outfit whose motto is "Curing Loneliness, One Lick at a Time."

Other Los Gatans involved are Judy Lipp and Cassie Niswonger and their dogs. Lipp has a Papillon named Ares and regularly visits Camden Convalescent and San Jose Medical Center, as well as the Meadows. Niswonger is a longtime visitor with her poodle, Bently. She visits the Meadows and the Saratoga Adult Day Care Center.

The Furry Friends' mission is "to consistently facilitate delivery of the love and affection of our volunteers and their pets. We enhance the lives and reopen the closed emotional doors of people with special needs." The phone number is 408.280.6171 and the website is located at www.furryfriends.org.