School Therapy Dog

All dogs need compassion from their owners and a positive environment to avoid destructive behaviors.

Most of the therapy dogs come from a selective breeding program known as the American Kennel Club (AKC). These dogs go through several months of obedience training and must be able to strictly follow commands. These dogs must also feel comfortable in the presence of wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, oxygen tanks, food carts, and any other equipment patients and therapists use. A number of studies have demonstrated that the presence of therapy dogs serve to increase the quantity and quality of positive attention directed toward the physically handicapped by both familiar individuals and

There are 3 different types of service dogs people can have: Emotional Support Animals, Therapy Animals, and Service Animals. Emotional Support Animals have one task and that is to provide comfort and support, emotionally, to someone who needs it and has a documented health condition. Therapy Animals are registered through an agency and their purpose is to provide therapeutic value to those who need it. Service animals are trained to perform tasks the owner simply cannot do on their own, guiding blind people, detecting seizures, helping people who have lost legs or arms.

In the field of therapy, there are numerous of therapy available out there for different type of individuals and situations as well. There is one type of therapy that usually contains people and animal, it is animal-assisted therapy is a therapeutic approach that brings animals and individuals with physical and/or emotional needs together to perform the therapy. Animal-assisted therapy tend to be focused on individuals either children or elderly for them to be able to connect with the animal thus feeling comfortable talking with the therapist. Pet therapy works for all ages, whether sick or not (Lanchnit, 2011). Although, this paper, most of the focus is on animal-assisted therapy towards children using dogs.

Once a puppy dog being trained as a service dog reaches eighteen to twenty months, they leave their training family and are brought to the training organization for further training along with other service dogs. The dogs are trained to have good manners. During their training time they learn fifty plus commands. They are trained to perform tasks that are difficult and uncomfortable such as crawling along the floor so that they can get under furniture to retrieve items that their owners may have dropped. The dogs must be strong in case they need to push or pull a wheel chair through a narrow area. At the end of training, they are given difficult tests to test their shyness and submissiveness, if they startle, and if they are forgiving and loving. If they pass all their tests, they go through a boot camp where their potential owners are trained how to take care of them. During

Having a companion dog, usually either a Golden retriever or Labrador retriever, due to their size and gentle nature, is vastly different from simply having a pet. Service dogs go through extensive training, usually six to eighteen months, before being placed with a child and continue training after being placed in the home. The key is to evaluate the situation as carefully as possible, keeping expectations realistic and conditions flexible. A companion animal is the most rewarding when the whole family is willing to adapt and take on the responsibilities; thus increasing the quality of life substantially.

These animals are there to provide not only emotional support, but they also provide their humans with companionship. Jim was a lost individual that spent a lot of time isolating himself from people. Jim is a veteran and he was filled with anxiety after being deployed. Jim now has an emotional support dog named, Sarge. Sarge is there for Jim and she helps his anxiety level. When Jim is in a crowd of people, his anxiety level rises. But, with Sarge by his side, he is able to go out and do normal things. Jim was on a lot of medication and now with Sarge, he is off all the medication. Sarge really did a lot to help Jim and now Jim is working with an organization called Paws and Stripes. It is an organization that works to bring these emotional support dogs to our veterans that suffer from a mental or physical disability. It is amazing how just one dog can bring about such a change in a person. (Psychiatric Service Dog Society, 2012)

Dogs may bring happiness to veterans and help them through the rough times in life. PTSD takes the life of copious amounts of veterans each year. If we want to treat PTSD we need to give veterans a friend to be by their side.

TBI’s can be mild or severe and can affect a multitude of areas in a veteran’s life. When a veterans cognitive skills are affected the service dog is trained to respond to alert the veteran of hazards, alert them of nightmares/ terrors, and many more. Service dogs also help with the veterans balancing. When it is hard to get up out of a seat or walk the stairs, the service dog is always there to brace the veteran. Many veterans with TBI’s have headaches and forget many things. By having a service dog they can retrieve items, medication and snuggle with the veteran in the time of need. Service dogs also help with the emotional/behavioral aspect by being the companion the veteran needs and distracting them from situations that may make any occasion worse (Neurological Disorders,

The guide dog performs functions and tasks for the person that has disabilities and cannot perform for him or herself. A sighting seeing dog is one of the services for who are blind. This is the type of service animal with which most people are familiar. The guide dog is not a pet, but not licensed or certified. But there are service animals that assist persons with other kinds of disabilities in their day-to-day activities. Some examples include: Alerting persons with hearing impairments to sounds. Pulling wheelchairs or carrying and picking up things for persons with mobility

These dogs learn many tasks so they are specialized for their certain patient. Therapy dogs learn special tasks to decrease the anxiety in a patient during certain situations, so “Stanek trains his dogs to perform 10 or so PTSD-specific tasks. Some of them are designed to ease concerns about blind spots, not unlike the way a military unit designates someone to watch troops' backs or to scout ahead. Stanek's 2-year-old Catahoula mix, Sarge, for example, has been trained to check around the corner to see what's in the next aisle at a store.”(Thompson 3). When therapy dogs are in public areas, they tend to use tasks like checking around the corners at stores. Those with PTSD sometimes believe there are attackers around the corner. This helps relieve stress of the war veteran by assuring that when the veteran turns the corner they will not get hurt. Not only do the dogs go through training to become perfect for their patients, but they also have to become trained in “normal” tasks, whether their patients use it or not. A therapy dogs may be complicated or not but either way “To qualify as a service animal, dogs must be trained to do work or perform tasks like providing safety checks and room searches for a person with PTSD.”(Thompson 3) . When dogs successfully pass the tests to become a therapy dog, people know therapy dogs are effective at reducing symptoms due to all the standards they must meet. People can usually tell when it is a therapy dog or a pleasure dog just by how they act. Therapy dogs tend to be much calmer and are very good at calming people down. The special training dogs go through make them not only able to but also extremely talented at decreasing a PTSD patient’s

The next skill I think a dog needs to have is a sense of calmness. From the article Service Dogs, Patients Bond Through

Medical professionals have recently seen the positive effects animals are able to provide to their patients with mental disabilities. The emotional support dog MA recognizes

My registered Therapy Dog, Lucky, has been a member of Therapy Dog International since 2011. Under my training, Lucky has also passed his Canine Good Citizenship test. Lucky and I visit multiple facilities including assisted living establishments and elementary schools. Lucky has also been called upon for home visits with a local suffering form ALS. During our visit, our goal is to progress the humans physical, social, emotional, and cognitive function. The ability to communicate and find common interest with a variety of individuals has helped me to form lasting friendships while working with

I think it was a great idea. It has helped me and my dog Charisma. After Charisma recovered she was not acting normal. After I brought her to your dog therapy she changed. Now she is normal and healthy again. This is also helping others, not just me. That is why I think your dog therapy was the best idea you’ve ever came up with! Thank you.