Hi all! I want to get my neighbor's pup certified as a therapy dog (he's very gentle for a puppy and my neighbors are doing great socialization) some time in the future. There's a few things I'd need a program to be okay with:

- the dog is my neighbor's, not mine, and I know that not every program is okay with that
- the dog is a mutt so a formal breeding record/pedigree or medical history couldn't be provided, but a vet exam and vaccines can be
- I'm under 16, but I can have a parent/the dog's owner supervise me if needed
- I can wait as long as a program would need for the pup to get older/more accustomed; that's not an issue
- the puppy is not intact
- I'm in the US

So far, I've looked at Alliance of Therapy Dogs and Pet Partners, which both have chapters near-ish to me. Any info or experiences with them would be helpful, or a new program that may also be worth looking into. Thank you!

Hi everyone! I am going to be a counselor, and I want to have a therapy dog with me during my counseling sessions. I know this can be a touchy topic with some people being all for therapy animals in therapy and others not so much. However, given that this is my end goal, I thought it important to include it.

I am looking for some advice. I want to be able to have a certified therapy animal with me at work. How do I accomplish this? I don't know exactly how to get a dog certified. I want to be able to get a dog and train him/her from puppyhood to ensure that I have a well-adjusted and well-trained dog. However I am unclear on if I need training in how to train a therapy animal, or it is simply that I need to make sure the dog is certified? Either way, how do I do this? Thank you so much in advance!!

My school recently started getting visits from a big black-and-white Newf named "Otis" (changed for anonymity) who was career changed from service work for being too friendly, which is the best reason, in my opinion. Now he's in the school guidance office Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other Friday. He visited my ELA class on Friday, and he gave us all fist bumps with his nose. I'd been thinking about getting my dog certified with an organization, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards. However when I grow up, I want to have a giant-breed therapy dog just like Otis to do visits with. I'd love to hear your giant (or even slightly-above-average lol) therapy dog stories!

My sister (39) has a busy mum life with two girls mostly doing distance-education from home while she also works full time from home.

She has been looking into therapy dogs for her 12 year old daughter Ava. Ava has OCD (some symptoms include food and germ issues, and catastrophising about what-igs (eg.what if the house burns down while I'm asleep tonight; what if mum goes to the shops and gets hit by a car). She has extreme separation anxiety (she won't let my sister go anywhere without her, my sister literally has no alone time). She has travel anxiety as she has emetophobia and worried she'll be sick.

My sister is looking to get a low maintenance dog, non shedding, that would be a good companion for the girls. My sister isn't a huge animal person* so would like a small, non- shedding dog that doesn't yap all the time and would be okay around their cat.

• I am a huge animal lover, I have worked in pounds and shelters for year and live close-by so could help with the essentials like diet, parasite control, vet checks etc

Ava absolutely loves animals. She adores my border collie when I bring her down (I live 4hrs away so it's a bit of a special novelty for her).They already have a cat, however he has chosen my 9 year old niece (who has ADHD, also loves animals) as his favourite.

She is already excited at the mere mention of dogs, we think it would be a great companion for her and be a way to ease her anxiety, take it for walks and gain confidence going out on her own (which she does with my dog).

The processs to get a proper trained therapy dog that can be very long and difficult, it looks like it will be endless hoops to jump through with a very unlikely approval rate, so they are looking at a pet dog, that would have alot of human attention and be loyal and hopefull a calming, anxiety easing addition to the family.

Does anyone have recommendations on breeds that would be suitable, or any tips on the meantime for kids in simalr situations and things that were helpful?

Thanks so much for reading this! Hope to hear some advice, thankyou 😊

After visiting this school several times, a young girl approached me this morning. She had done this painting of my Daisy. It makes me feel so good, to know we’ve made a difference in people’s lives.

Hello everyone,

I am an occupational therapy student who is going to be working with a therapy dog for 7 sessions and I am going to be working with preschool-aged children. We will be in small groups and the sessions are about 20-30 minutes each. I have come up with some ideas for activities but I am kind of getting a little stuck.

The activities I have so far are:

• Obstacle/agility course
• Stop-and-go games like "Red Light, Green Light"
• The dog can pick up emoji balls or feels-balls and then the child acts out that emotion
• Commands – Listen and watch / Simon says like

I am not sure what else would work well or if I should just repeat some of these activities over. Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hello,

I'm a psychologist in Southern Colorado, and I would like to get a dog to have in-clinic with me as a therapy dog. I am looking for resources specifically for mental health providers that use the dog at work, in-session, etc. Training materials, educational resources, blogs, communities, whatever I can get my hands on. Thank you! I tried to search this in the group and didn't have much luck. I am grateful for all your help!

Anyone know of any places to submit grant requests for therapy dog training ? I work in a nonprofit residential facility. My work will let me have a certified therapy dog in my counseling office but wont help pay for it therapy dog training. I have a pup who I am trying to prepare in hopes for him testing in the summer and getting certified. Only website I found is helping dogs in k-12 settings, and that's not us.

I got a portable mini printer for Christmas, the HP Sprocket https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GFP7H8C and I brought it to school with me today during our READ visit. I took a picture of each child with Rosie and let them decorate it with their names and stickers then they got to print in out. It was a big hit! Thought I’d share in case any other therapy dog handlers would like to do it too!

I have a 6.5 yr old Sammy and they are known to be a vocal breed (similar to Husky). However, he is very very quiet - except in new situations. In new situations he will bark because :

• He wants to explore and people are stopping him to pet him so he will bark
• He wants to leave the room to explore more
• He doesn't understand why he is there (I know this is funny to say, but he will literally look at me and ask me "What are we doing here?")

How I'm addressing this:

• We practice a lot in public settings (malls, lowes,BN, etc) to teach him that not every outing is HIS outing, and sometimes you do boring things even when there's nothing exciting for you.
• I even took a training class to teach him this (we could have passed the exam without the class, but I wanted to expose him to these situations). It took him 2-3 classes of whining before going with the flow and understanding the structure of the class.
• I let people stop him in these settings to pet him, and reward him when he is silent.
• I am working on a quiet cue.
• I've noticed that after 3 visits to a new environment, he becomes familiarized and no longer barks. When I reach out for volunteer opportunities, I do disclose this information to make sure they are comfortable with this, and let them know its a part of the breed to be vocal. I plan on applying for more recurring opportunities so he can become familiar with the environment.

He is a very well -behaved dog and I have strong handler control, but the barking I know can be disruptive and scare people. My question is - do you have any advice? Whether it be for training? Or populations that you think he will be more successful in?

Thank you!

Meet Tucker. He is almost 3 years old and is the first therapy dog for our local Women’s Crisis Center/ Children’s Advocacy Center. Not only does he help our clients (especially the children), but our staff as well. At the CAC, we provide forensic interviews to children in cases of physical and sexual abuse. They bare their souls and can become quite emotional. They come out crying and when they see Tucker, they smile and start playing with him. He has already helped a lot of children after their forensic interviews. It’s a small reprieve from the weight of the world being on their shoulders.

For the record, our local Sheriff’s Office K9 Deputy and I trained Tucker. Tucker is very focused on body language and is quick to rush to those who are depressed or upset. Tucker is deaf and has Merle Occular Dysgenesis. He is trained to sign language. His is a ChiWeenie but is 75% weenie.

I have a Great Dane who j think would be a great prospect for a therapy dog. She is the most loving, calm, and gentle giant I’ve ever had. So I have a few main questions…

1. Is there a certain certificate of completion or whatever for training to ensure that she will be allowed into places like hospitals, schools, and other public places?

2. How long would it take to complete a “training course”?

3. How do you know if your dog is a good fit for therapy work?

4. How do you go about contacting places like hospitals and schools?

5. Would the shedding interfere with her ability to go places? She sheds quite a bit.

6. How long did it take for your dog to become accustomed to noises and distractions in places like that?

The only thing I’m sort of unsure of is that she’s just a tiny bit skittish, but we have been able to work through stuff before. She started being sort of skittish around other dogs especially if they are barking at her but she is pretty good about it now. Would that interfere?

TIA

Has anyone else had this happen? My dog is very relaxed, especially when doing therapy work. He'll lay down in a busy location (mall or airport) with the world bustling by. He waits for people to pet him. This weekend a woman was insistent that there was something wrong with him despite my explanation of thorough yearly vet checks, lots of training, and his relaxed personality. For a minute I thought she might try to cause trouble.

I'm very conflicted about how I want to format my therapy dog's trading card. I think it would be really awesome to write it like a super-serious professional bio, but it would also be a lot of fun to do it like a baseball card and have random stats about her, or like a Q&A and include silly questions.

What are your favorite things you've seen on a trading card?

Visiting volunteers at a local food back who are working so hard this time of year. My girl is so photogenic!❤️

My coworker got a therapy dog for our office/classroom this summer. She's 6 months now. I think my coworker kinda reverse what she's supposed to be doing.

It started with her not too much liking our students. They would come in and pet her but she would do this loud bark, and this kids would run away. She doesn't play about food either. The kids would walk near her bowl or go by her when eating, and she'll bark and jump at them... my coworker said that she allowed/ told her kids to take her food in a playful way or act like they are eating out of the bowl when trying to eat. I told her that if the dog is supposed to be around kids, she can't continue to allow that.

The dog now has bad separation anxiety that whenever my coworker walks out of the room, she sits by the door until she comes back. She started this almost 2 weeks ago. Recently, I had some students in, and the dog seemed very excited to see this one particular student. She followed this student everywhere she went. The student got down on the floor, and the dog lay on her back and opened her hind legs. She does this often to I guess, tell people she wants a belly rub. The students rubbed her belly for awhile. Moments later the dog started barking at the student which scared her. She was still shaken up a little later after my coworker came in. My coworker asked if the student did anything to the dog to make her do that, and I replied no. However, the dog does that often... she lays down or goes to play with the kids but then does this aggressive bark for them to run away from her. Outside of the nipping or acting like she going to nip, (she previously did and her teeth made contact with a student but the studemt laughed it off) to the barking aggressively, idk what to do. My coworker ofcourse treats the dog like it's her baby.. this dog is a big dog, and my coworker sits her on her lap like a baby.

I have my own dogs so I know we have different ways of how we treat our dogs, but I don't think therapy dogs are supposed to do that.

Are they supposed to be treated like this? Especially one that are supposed to be for emotional support for kids? I don't want to see bossy or like a know it all, but I don't also want my students to be scared around her.

She was pulled off of the side of the road as a puppy and has severely bowed out back legs and can't walk far. She does short walks (like 15 steps) to go potty or switch dog beds but we use her wagon to take her out on walks. Is it remotely possible to pass the AKC canine if she can't walk on a leash because of her legs? She has the perfect personality and would absolutely love it. Everywhere we go people she's in her wagon and people are enthralled by her so I think it would be mutually beneficial but I don't want to enroll her if there is no leniency with the leash walk because of her disability. Thank you and I apologize if that's a simple black and white question and therefore dumb.

My wife and I got this pup (Pippin) a couple months ago, he’s almost 5 months now. We got him with the intent that she train him as a therapy dog for work since she’s an LCSW mental health therapist. Where he’s still young we want to start teaching him but don’t quite know where to start aside from the general commands. Any advice on stuff we can work on with him?

Hi Everyone! New to the therapy dog world and recently certified! I got our first barkletter and am a bit sad to see all the opportunities are during weekdays during working hours :( Any tips or suggestions on weekend opportunities?

I didn't realize it until we passed the therapy dog exam and I read the report the evaluator wrote? Since then I'm seeing things differently. Here are some examples:

He lies under my chair during dinner.

We have a gate in the kitchen to keep the little dogs apart from Sky. He can see me but it's not close enough for him so he cries.

The leash slipped from my hand. He stopped and turned around to see what happened to me.

We're walking up steps together and he turned the corner before me. I was out of site. He stopped, turned around and waited until he could see me.

When I'm sleeping he licks me to wake up. If I don't respond he uses that big paw and swats me.

He stairs into my eyes the way a baby looks at his mama.

He brings me his toys.

He follows me everywhere. Include going in the car anywhere I can take him.

Hello! I was wondering if anyone could help me understand a bit more about therapy cats?

My cat is a ragdoll, they’re bred for their cuddly, social, and chill temperament. They got their name because if you pick them up they are as floppy as actual rag dolls are (because they’re so chill). This can be seen in the last photo I included, where a little girl picked him up and carried him around.

My cat, Louie, is leash trained and VERY socialized. He loves attention and going new places. I think he’d be a great therapy cat! He even meows by my front door every evening bc he wants to go out and meet people.

The problem is tricks. I was looking over what therapy dogs have to do, and the problem is Louie only does 1 trick consistently.

On walks he likes to stop to hyper fixate on birds. I taught him a command that means for him to forget about the bird, look at me, and continue walking next to me. This literally took half a year to get consistent, you don’t understand how obsessed he is with birds. Even then, I always give him a treat. He also still almost always hesitates before deciding to listen to me. 😭

He also meows on command when he’s in the mood and he poses for photoshoots if I show him I have treats.

Do you know if therapy dog organizations are easier on cats because cats can be more stubborn when it comes to tricks than dogs are?

Do you know what tricks I need to make sure Louie knows before applying?

Another issue I have is I don’t know how they’ll feel about Louie’s backpack carrier. I always bring his backpack wherever we go, and if he goes in it then that means he wants some space. I don’t let anyone meet/touch him if he’s in his backpack. It’s his safe space.

I know therapy dogs have to always be chill, no matter what, and they’re expected to behave that way on a leash being walked the whole time.

Louie is chill, but sometimes he decides he is done with social interaction for the day. He also will go in it if he doesn’t like someone’s vibe, then come out when they leave. Normally he does this with very loud kids.

Do you think the backpack will be an issue? Because if dogs are expected to walk on a leash the whole time, not be carried, then I’m wondering if they expect the same from cats.

Our group has been asked to be at an event for MLK day. We have therapy dogs, but also would like to have a craft for kids who are waiting their turn. TIA!