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The use of dogs and cats to provide therapeutic services to patients
requiring long-term care is know as animal assisted therapy. Animal
assisted therapy programs work closely with health care organizations
to give patients mental stimulation on a one on one basis. If
you are interested in involving your pet in animal assisted therapy,
there a few things that you will need to know to get started.
The initial step will be to evaluate your dog's personality. You
will need to make sure your dog is not hyper, is confident, and
very tolerant of noise and touching. It is also important that
your dog be very tolerant to pain that may occur due to children
or the elderly falling and inadvertently hurting the dog.
You dog
will need to be friendly to strangers and other animals. Your
dog may be touched continuously, left alone with a stranger,
and will need to be extremely tolerant of cats. If your dog
bites or harms a person or another animal, you could potentially
face a lawsuit. While you would hope that any person that comes
in contact with your dog would have been instructed on how to
greet a dog properly, it is always possible that the patient
will know nothing about dogs.
Look for
organizations in your area that will work with you and your
dog. The organization you choose will need to be able to certify
your dog according to the minimum requirements for animal assisted
therapy, and maintain current liability insurance and have an
excellent reputation for providing top quality pets to animal
assisted therapy programs. Hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted
living facilities are more likely to allow visits from dogs
and other pets if the dogs are sponsored by a reputable organization. |
