Service and Therapy Dogs

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Service and Therapy Dogs

. . .from Professor Hunt's Dog Page

For subpages, use the navigation bar above. On this page:

[Therapy Dogs are not Service Dogs]
[Service Dog Links] [Relevant Links for Service Dog People] [Professor Hunt's Virtual Lecture on Therapy Dogs] [Therapy Dog Organizations] [Other Therapy Dog Sites] [Online Articles about Therapy Dogs] [Recommended Reading]

Therapy Dogs are not Service Dogs

Most of this page is about therapy dogs. The most important piece of information you need to know about therapy dogs, though, is what they are not. Therapy dogs are not service (or "assistance") dogs.

Why does this matter? Well, because service dogs are vitally important to those people with disabilities who are fortunate enough to have these wonderful animals. Service dogs include guide (or "leader") dogs for the blind; hearing dogs, that alert their owners to sounds; mobility assistance dogs, which may pull a wheelchair or directly support a person; seizure alert dogs; and others. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a person with a disability is entitled to take a service animal with him, or her, wherever it is needed. Period. You can read more about service dogs at the sites listed below.

The exact language of the ADA that covers service dogs, borrowed from a now defunct service-and-therapy-dog web site, follows here:

Service Animal means any guide dog, signal dog or other animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including but not limited to guiding individuals with impaired vision, alerting individuals with impaired hearing to intruders, providing minimal rescue or protection work, pulling a wheelchair or fetching dropped items.

Therapy dogs, on the other hand, perform their tasks by invitation. The owner of a therapy dog has no more "right" of access to a hospital, nursing home, or public place than any other able-bodied person with a pet. (Note that the "right" accrues to the person, in either case, not to the dog! This is a crucial distinction that many fail to make.) As you will see in Professor Hunt's Virtual Lecture on Therapy Dogs, below, most hospitals and some nursing homes require a lot of paperwork before a therapy dog sets foot in the facility--the same facility where any person with a disability has a clear right to enter with his or her service dog.

Service Dog Links

Service Dogs, from rec.pets.dogs' FAQ page,

by Cindy Tittle Moore (also discusses therapy dogs)

Assistance Dog Web Page

--an indispensable listing of programs that train guide, hearing, and service dogs

Canine Companions for Independence

(a national service dog organization)

International Association of Assistance Dog Partners

--a fairly new site with terrific links and a cross-disability approach

Paws with a Cause

--hearing, service, and combination dogs

Paws with a Cause

--gives perspective of a puppy raiser)

Dogs for the Disabled

--a program in South Carolina training hearing, assistance, and companion dogs--currently not functioning--I know these people and will find out where there website has gone!

Assistance Dogs Web Site

The Puppy Place

thirteenth

Site of the Week, March 1-7, 1999

West Indies Service Helpers

Site of the Week, March 8-14, 1999

Karla Clinch's Service Dog Page

Service Dog Connection

Robin and her canine partner Abe include lots of useful information, such as do's-and-don'ts.

Other Links of Interest to Service Dog People
--Owners, Handlers, Trainers, and Friends

This new section contains a few selected links to sites that I find especially informative. Since I am more familiar with mobility/wheelchair dogs, sites for related disabilities will be more heavily represented than sites on visual and hearing problems. This is not a value judgment!

Spinal Cord Injury/Dysfunction Information Station

Spinal Cord Injury Ring

Therapy Dogs: National Organizations

Therapy Dogs Incorporated , in Wyoming

--many Charleston therapy teams are certified by TDInc. Note the organization's snappy new web page! Therapy Dogs International , in New Jersey

official

Delta Society (includes service, social, and therapy activities)

Therapy Dogs: Other Sites

"Create-a-Smile" Animal-Assisted-Therapy Team,

Prescription Pet Program

--includes protocols, reading list, impressive history

People-Pet Partnership

Human Animal Bond in Colorado

Animal Assisted Therapy

--guidelines from UCLA's medical school (currently unavailable)

Therapy Dogs, Cats, and Other Pets

Pets Are Loving Support

The Power of Pets

apparently an Australian site (brief)

Pet-Assisted Therapy

--a program in which shelter animals are used for institutional visits

Furry Friends Pet Assisted Therapy Services

Therapy Links

--an informative site in spite of the "dog play" label

InterMountain Therapy Animals (formerly The Good Shepherd Association)

new URL

The Bright and Beautiful Therapy Dogs, Inc

Critter Companions

Animal Assisted Therapy

--from the San Francisco SPCA's program

Dog-Owner Connection: Pet Therapy

a professional program

[Untitled] Stories of Working Therapy Dogs

Online Articles about Therapy Dogs
Some of these are original online articles; others are reprints. (Note: unfortunately, many of the articles posted here earlier have gone offline. Replacements are coming!)

"Visits to the Elderly from P.A.T. Dogs,", by Michaela Edridge

The Book of Visions: an Encyclopaedia of Social Inventions

Dogs as Medicine

--a lecture by Roberta Taylor

A Virtual Lecture on Therapy Dogs

Once the difference between service/assistance dogs and therapy dogs is understood, the rest of the information breaks down into a few simple categories:

Who? (qualities that distinguish a good Therapy Dog)
Where? (settings in which Therapy Dogs are used)
What? (functions that Therapy Dogs typically perform)
How? (mechanisms for certifying Therapy Dogs)
Why? (reasons for wanting to be a Therapy Dog handler)
Why not? (pigs, cats, and other therapy animals)

Who? or . . . what makes a good Therapy Dog prospect?

Temperament is the most important factor. (Remember the old real estate cliche, "location, location, location"? Well, in therapy work it's "temperament, temperament, temperament"--because nothing else will take its place.

A dog who is friendly--who really likes people in general--is already a promising candidate. The dog who is friendly and well behaved--no jumping, running around, licking people without permission--is on the way to certification. The dog who is trained to work around people who are bedridden or in wheelchairs, who is always under the handler's precise control, who can perhaps perform a few entertaining tricks--is halfway there. The dog who can take accidental mishaps in stride (such as when a disturbed client yells or brandishes a cane), who can deal alike with the endlessly repetitive interactions of Alzheimers patients, with the grabbing and gurgling of infants, and with the unpredicatability of psychiatric inpatients--and give every indication of enjoying its work--is indeed a Therapy Dog.

Note that very little has been said about training, as such. Yes, training matters--but unless the dog is friendly to start with, the training may well be wasted for this particular purpose. I have personally known a number of highly-trained dogs, some with truly impressive obedience titles, who would be barely adequate (if that) as Therapy Dogs. Of our own dogs, the better-trained one, who will retrieve various objects by name, perform lengthy out-of-sight sits and stays, etc., etc., is not a T-Dog prospect for several reasons, the most important of which is that he likes most strangers but not by no means all. He also has very normal reactions to disturbances and to perceived threats involving either himself or us. Our less-trained dog, on the other hand, is a natural. She not only loves everyone, but she is virtually "people-proof." If a cyclist ran over her tail after a parade, she would not (as her better-trained colleague did) bark at the person; she would look to me for a signal. You get the idea.

Where do Therapy Dogs work?

Therapy Dogs work wherever they are invited. (Go back to "Therapy Dogs are not Service Dogs" if you don't see why this matters). Some of the places they are invited to visit include:

Hospitals
Long-term Care Facilities
Nursing Homes
Adult Care ("adult day care") Facilities
Mental Health Centers
Special Education settings, including classrooms
Senior Citizen programs
Domestic Abuse shelters
Children's Residential Facilities
Prisons
Home Health visits

Also, the work done by the dogs becomes less focused and less specialized as you go down the list. Read on. . . .

What do Therapy Dogs actually do?

There are many uses for Therapy Dogs; some of these are quantifiable, but most are not. Thus a great deal of the evidence is "anecdotal" (a term that brings fear to any clinician's brain). The list below ascends, unlike the previous one, from the most general and also unskilled to the most demanding level, requiring more training.

Promoting a general feeling of wellbeing (children, elderly, general hospital admits)
Providing unconditional affection to those who lack it (persons in prisons and shelters, especially domestic-abuse shelters)
Improving focus (Alzheimers patients and persons suffering from clinical depression)
Interacting with those who have difficulty communicating (nonverbal clients; some psychiatric inpatients; persons with a range of associative disorders)
Stimulating memory functions (especially in Alzheimers patients)
Encouraging and aiding speech functions (e.g., in stroke patients) Note that all the activities above rely on a combination of touching, talking about, etc., in most of which the dog does not have to "do" very much except act friendly and be willing to be handled a lot.
Motivating simple physical activities for the mobility impaired (e.g., patting, brushing ,etc.)
Providing practice for specific Physical Therapy functions (throwing ball, offering tidbits, etc.) In these cases, the dog may perform much more specific tasks, or at least may need more specific equipment. We are now attempting to locate horse-type brushes (the oval flat kind with a strap across the back) for patients who have difficulty uncurling their fingers. We also have a Hula Hoop, with which both the dog and some of the patients can practice specific movements.
Modeling perseverance (many Therapy Dogs have been through terrible times -- patients often find it comforting that the Therapy Dog has not only survived these but have become useful to others).

How are Therapy Dogs certified?

It varies. Usually both a national organization (for the testing/certification and the insurance) and a local training club (for the logistics of scheduling visits) are involved. It is possible to deal directly with some of the national organizations listed at the top of this page; if they have a tester in your area, you may be able to get certified and then schedule your own visits with area facilities. Conversely, some local organizations help to schedule both fully-certified teams and those that are on their way. I recommend that where possible you work through a local organization that has a good arrangement with one of the nationals. There's always more to learn in this type of work, and doing it with other people means that you are more likely to hear about techniques that will help you.

Most national organizations require evidence of a stable temperament and/or basic training before they will even consider screening/training a Therapy Dog prospect. The exact nature of that evidence may be either specified by them, in some cases, or spelled out by a local group. The Canine Good Citizen test is frequently used for pre-screening. I have heard of one group that requires a CD.

Any of the national groups will give you the specifics on their requirements; you can then find out what local groups are affiliated with the national group of your choice. Or, if you prefer, you can talk to one or more local clubs involved in therapy work and then join the national group with which they are affiliated.

The prospective Therapy Dog is further screened in busy and sometimes stressful circumstances and closely observed on practice visits to health facilities. Some local clubs require that the handler be a club member; others conduct (and require) special therapy-dog classes, either before or after certification--or both.

What about the handler?

The dog is only half the team. You must not only work effectively with your dog; you must also learn to interact effectively with whatever clients you are visiting. This means that you will be working at least as hard as your dog. In many facilities, the professional staff will provide very specific guidance; in others, such as quite a few nursing homes, you will be practically on your own. My recommendation is to try to visit a facility (without your dog) to observe an experienced team working under those particular conditions. If this is not possible, then try to schedule one visit without the dog (to walk around and get the picture), then another preliminary short one with the dog, to meet the staff.

Prevention is the best cure for therapy-visit mishaps, and most organizations stress that, paradoxically, your first responsibility is to protect your dog. Not every patient wants to interact with dogs, and it takes quite a while to develop a sense of how to encourage interaction without causing problems. Some patients become very emotional when they recall the dogs of their childhood, or the dogs they will never be able to "play with" again now that they are paralyzed. It's important to play through possible scenarios like these before you encounter them! It's also important to keep in touch with the professional staff, and with fellow visiting teams that may have more experience.

Some handlers have trouble dealing with one or another class of patients (very ill children; Alzheimers patients in the more advanced stages; paraplegics; etc.) and should recognize their own strong and weak points in order to concentrate where they can be most useful. For instance, our "team" is more successful with psychiatric patients (both inpatients and outpatients) and with Rehab patients than in the typical nursing home setting, though we do visit one adult day care facility. For this reason, we now go more often to the two hospital settings where we are most effective, and have "traded off" a nursing home to another team that works better there.

Although most of the scientific research so far has concentrated on the effects of therapy on the patients, at least one study has been done involving handlers and their emotions. I will link to this after it arrives (it's currently on order.)

What about other animals?

Yes, many other animals have been used. Pets and People, to which I have already referred several times, has a flourishing therapy program involving cats; see the fine information on cats in therapy at their site. The Rehab unit where I visit used to have a visiting cat too; he recently died of old age and has not yet been replaced. Horses have many uses in therapy, especially for children--though these applications, being limited to outdoor venues and requiring a considerable investment in animals, space, equipment, and volunteer time, differ significantly from the types of indoor therapy discussed earlier. I have heard of trainable birds being used, though I have not seen this. Potbellied pigs are another possibility.

Equipment, Costumes, etc.
This is a new section--very much a work in progress.

In preparing for therapy work, you will also need to give some attention to equipment both for yourself and for your dog. Let's start with the dog.

Collar: must be attractive, properly fitted, and in compliance with your national registry's requirements (see below). Personally, I think that if at all possible, the collar should be washable--especially if you are working in a hospital environment or with people whose immune systems are compromised.

Registries differ: TDI allows only plain "buckle" (or snap) collars--no chokes or martingales. TDInc allows all three. I like the martingale collar, pictured at right, because (1) it is bidirectional so the dog can work on either side of you, and (2) the dog can't back out of it. Even a trained dog will very occasionally panic; the martingale collar minimizes that problem. I use martingales with the two TDInc dogs that I handle but not, of course with the TDI dog. (Photo by Leslie Pirnie of Canine Leashes and Collars. Click on the collar to see the picture full size.)

Leashes: again, I like fabric because it is washable (unlike leather). Many handlers have a series of different leashes for different seasons and holidays. TDInc is stricter on this one than TDI: it requires that leashes be no more than four feet in length and recommends shorter ones for big dogs.

ID capes: these are not actually required but can be useful especially when dealing with poorly trained security personnel. At right is Toby, a mixed Schnauzer, wearing a red ID cape from Raspberry Field, with the Therapy Dogs Incorporated patch sewn to the left side, "Toby" embroidered across the top, and "Therapy Dog" embroidered on each side.

Why is Toby sitting in a camp chair? This was a piece of equipment we added when Toby and I were volunteering with a local hospice. I could carry it to the patient's bed, set it up, and put Toby in it to get him to eye level.

Coming next: how the well dressed handler looks.