Therapy Dogs Research Paper

Many professionals recognize the benefits of assistive animals for people with physical disabilities. This includes seeing-eye dogs that are trained to alert owners to environmental hazards. Some policies may be hard to change, but are required if needed. One well known policy

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.

Some of the more common types of service dogs are dogs that help with allergy detection, usually peanuts, seizure alert dogs, usually for epilepsy, guide dogs, who help assist the blind in everyday activities, and hearing dogs, who assist the deaf in warning them of auditory signals like an approaching car or a neighbor ringing the

When an occupational therapist uses animals in their therapy the patient, in this case a child, will be either in their wheelchair or on a therapy mat. If the child is recovering from a brain injury and is experiencing difficulty grooming themselves due to loss of function in an arm, the therapist will ask the child to use their weak arm to pet or brush the dog. As the limb grows stronger, they may add a weight to the wrist to increase their strength. They can also use an adapted brush if the child is having

The well-trained, educated staff have a vital role in coordinating and providing the necessary information to the individuals and families regarding the four types of assistance dogs. Service dogs, Facility dogs, Hearing dogs, and Skilled companion dogs. Having a knowledgeable staff who are able to deliver services, advocate when necessary, provide referrals as well as brokering for the client. These aspects in addition to, it’s structure, funding, collaboration and delivery of services, cultural competence, systems thinking, worker and leadership effectiveness are used in order to enhance or change the lives of individuals. Empowering the consumer is crucial to creating independence, thus meeting the goal of this organization.

Dogs have helped humans in various medical fields for a long time. There are dogs that get experimental cancer treatments to see if they would be safe for humans. There are dogs that are trained to sniff out cancer in a human and according to the article by D. Becker, “there are even service dogs who alert their owners when their blood sugar is dropping dangerously low.” (p.1). Some people think that service dogs should not be allowed in schools because they are afraid. However they are wrong because service dogs are so well trained they will not harm the students or other people in a

In today’s evolving society, there is more mobility that ever for people with disabilities. One of the things that allows this to happen is the use of service animals. Problems however arise when people try to cheat the system. Attempts to pass off pets as service animals, improperly trained animals, and businesses with lack of knowledge on laws all contribute to ongoing frustrations. The need for a centralized training standard as well as government registration and regulation of service animals is clear and immediate. If standards can be established within breeding clubs for “Good Citizen” training, then it can be done for service dogs. Then, once

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

Service and Therapy Dogs According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, “A service dog is any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal, individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability,” (Levingson). This means that a service dog can help people with a variety of disabilities once trained. There are two main classifications for a therapy dog: service dogs, who help those with physical disabilities, and psychdogs, who help those with mental disabilities.

I'd like to start off my introducing myself, I'm Jimmy Reginald Fontenot. I've spent a majority of my life working for the State Police in the wonderful state of Louisiana. Before my 12 years in the State Police I was a Canine Handler for the St. Landry Parish sheriff's office for 3 years, worked there for a total of 4. As you can tell I'm a career lawman and will continue till my last breath to serve the beautiful city of Los Santos. I'd like to take a moment to also thank the previous commander, Roman Stakic, for nominating me as the new Canine Services Commander. I will do him, the department, and the fine city of Los Santos proud and continue his legacy through the Canine Service. I'd also like to address that the Canine Services Unit will

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

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.

It is often said that a dog is a man’s best friend. In the last 14,000 years, dogs have accompanied man by helping him hunt, guard, and protect. In our modern world, dogs help us combat in war, search-and-rescue, guide the blind, deaf, discapacitated, rehabilitate patients in therapy, aid law enforcement, and are part of our family as beloved pets (Coren). Although canine superstars such as Lassie, Old Yeller, and Rin Tin Tin portray the perfect dog we all want in our lives, these ideals are far from the truth. Many first-time dog owners expect dogs to know behaviors such as how to walk on a leash, not bite, not destroy the house, and in addition to many others. In reality, dogs must be trained on what their handler wants them to do. It is