First, a couple of facts:

• Spending time with pets makes people healthier (source).
• Volunteering is one of the best things people can do to improve happiness (source).

So forget kale and jogging; volunteering with pets must be one of the best things that we can do to stay happy and healthy. At least that's been my experience working with Stevie as a Pet Partners Therapy Team through Therapy Animals of Utah and the Delta Society.

Stevie and I volunteer every other week at the Volunteers of America Detox Center. Stevie enjoys his therapy work immensely. During his visits, he hangs out with the residents and gets love and attention. He's not the only one who gets something out of it. Last May, the Detox Center gave us an award for Stevie's extraordinary and loving presence.

If you're interested in becoming a therapy team with your dog or cat, here's some information about how we became one.

Making Sure Your Dog Has the Right Temperament

Ever since Stevie came to live with us at 13 weeks old, he was outgoing and excited to meet new people. That first weekend we took him to the farmers market, out to brunch, to pet supply stores, and to visit friends. You might think this would scare a blind puppy, but he just ate it up. He was ecstatic whenever anyone noticed him and came over to say hi.

That innate interest in meeting new people is the most important part of being a therapy dog. If your dog doesn't enjoy new people petting him or her, being a therapy dog will not be any fun at all. Because I knew therapy work was something that I wanted to do with Stevie and I knew he had the inclination, I went out of my way to give him as many positive experiences as I could with new people and places.

Building Obedience Skills

I enrolled Stevie in a puppy kindergarten class as soon as I could. A good puppy kindergarten class will alternate a couple minutes of doing something obedience related with a few minutes of letting all the puppies play. It's always positive, and it's a blast. It might not seem like the pups are learning much, but it builds some awesome groundwork for later obedience work.

Don't worry if your dog is older. From puppy kindergarten, we moved onto a Canine Good Citizen class. This class trains you and your dog for the Canine Good Citizenship test, which is similar to the obedience portions of the Delta Society's evaluation. You can learn more about the CGC test and find a class here: http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/training_testing.cfm

Having a well-trained and socialized dog is essential. Stevie is easier to handle, and I know how he reacts in all sort of different situations. This makes our therapy work so much easier and safer. It also makes our daily lives easier and safer. I'd have a hard time taking an untrained dog out to a busy park or on a hike, but Stevie does just fine in those situations, and he's blind.

Training the Person

Shortly after Stevie turned one (the minimum age to be a therapy dog), I attended an 8-hour workshop on how to be a Pet Partner handler. We talked about everything from how to get a dog ready for a visit to how to maneuver a dog around a wheel chair.

This is an important requirement.  Everyday I'm Stevie's guide person out in the world, and as part of a Pet Partners team, you are your dog's guide person on therapy visits. There's a lot to be aware of and to do to keep your dog and the people you are visiting safe. By the end of our visits, I'm often as tired as Stevie is.

The Evaluation

A couple months after the workshop, Stevie and I went through the Delta Society's team evaluation. It checks for basic obedience, temperament, and how well the animal and person work together. Here's a description: http://www.deltasociety.org/Page.aspx?pid=264

I was a nervous wreck going into it. Stevie, of course, was blissfully unaware of what was happening. He was just excited about all the new people. He had one hiccup on his stay – totally my fault – but rocked it on the second try. He also started running toward someone with a walker.

The nice thing about the evaluation is that you get three tries on everything, including the whole evaluation if you don't pass. There are also varying levels of passing. Stevie and I passed but can't visit facilities for the medically fragile until Stevie gets better around those walkers.

The Health Checkup

After the evaluation, we headed to the vet for a checkup and to have him fill out some paperwork stating that Stevie was healthy enough to be a therapy dog. After that, I sent in all the paperwork and waited 3-4 weeks for Delta to process it.

This didn't work quite so smoothly for us. In addition to being blind, Stevie has had seizures in the past. This meant I had to get an additional letter from our vet and wait a bit longer for our application to be processed.

The nice thing about Delta is that they don't discriminate against any kind of dog. Stevie has two strikes against him: being a pit bull and being disabled. That might make some people think he should just stay at home, but Delta recognizes that he has a unique gift to give.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Dogs. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.