Perhaps you've read newspaper articles or seen "human interest" stories on the news about rescued track greyhounds visiting nursing home residents, or libraries and elementary school using dogs as reading partners. Therapy dogs (and other animals too) have been around for a while and the programs seem to be both popular and successful.

The Benefits
If you are wondering why hospitals or nursing homes allow dogs to interact with patients, or how a dog's presence could possibly make a difference to an emergent reader's confidence, you might not find scientific proof or hard evidence of the positive impact these dogs have on the people they interact with. What you will find, though, is myriad anecdotes and some studies indicating that petting a dog can lower blood pressure or increase motivation to do difficult tasks.

For a stroke victim, for example, speaking or working on physical therapy tasks might be difficult or exhausting. With a dog present, sometimes these patients are able to make more progress. Hesitant new readers often struggle with reading out loud for fear of making mistakes. This is especially true of adults who are just learning to read. Reading to a dog can be a key intervention, helping the newly literate person to practice with a supportive and nonjudgmental audience. For a combat veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), petting a dog can be a key emotional connection. Many people who have lost faith or the ability to trust find that petting a dog can help them regain a sense of themselves as something other than ill, or victimized. These benefits, while tricky to measure or quantify are nonetheless profound.

A Key Distinction
Therapy dogs are dogs who visit people in hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, schools, prisons, etc. The purpose of their visit is to be supportive, but the dogs basically are just there to be petted and to interact with the patients or prisoners. Service dogs, such as Seeing Eye dogs, are specially trained and actually perform important functions for their person. Service dogs are used for people with a great many physical and mental disabilities, and can be trained to assist their people in amazingly complex ways, such as waking up a person with PTSD if they show signs of having a nightmare. Therapy dogs, while they do provide great comfort and solace, do not actually have any role other than to be petted and present. In the instance of using therapy dogs in prison, offering prisoners something other than the violence that brought them to prison in the first place to focus on, rehabilitation is more likely a scenario. Caring for a dog in prison has shown a lower recidivism rate than in prisons that don't "employ" the use of dogs.

Some Choices
There are a number of different organizations that certify dogs (and sometimes other animals) as therapy dogs. Therapy Dogs International (TDI) and the Delta Society are two well-known groups that offer this certification. The TDI certification involves a two-part evaluation in which the dog first earns his/her AKC Canine Good Citizenship certification and then is tested for tolerating situations specific to the therapy environment, such as being exposed to unpredictable and loud people, being poked or startled, and being briefly separated from their owner. Evaluations are offered at various locations throughout the year, and any breed or mix may seek to be evaluated. The dogs have to be at least one year old and pass the temperament evaluation.

The Delta Society certifies pet owners to become Pet Partners. There are a few rules or prerequisites to becoming a Pet Partner team with your dog. The Delta Society will not certify a dog who is fed a raw food diet. Dogs must be at least one year old, and the handler must be at least 10 years old if a parent or guardian is involved, and 16 year old if not. Any dog with a bite history or a dog that has killed another animal may not become certified, and exotic species (e.g. wolf hybrids) will not be considered for the program. The Delta Society does allow "pocket pets" such as guinea pigs or hamsters to participate: they must be at least 6 months old, and all animals must have veterinary clearance that is reviewed and updated on a yearly basis.