"Intro to Animal Therapy," or "How I Fortuitously Stumbled onto my Future'

Flashback: Last September I was walking Toby, our adult Sheltie, through our small downtown, and stopped in at a new craft consignment store. I took Toby in with me (he is so well behaved he is welcome in nearly every business in town), and one of the owners had his dog in the store with him. I struck up a conversation with the man, as dog people are wont to do, and discovered that his was a seizure alert dog (a service dog that warns its human partner when a seizure is imminent, so the person can go to a safe place to have the seizure or seek help). He remarked that Toby was a very intelligent, well trained dog, and told me that such a dog should have the chance to fulfill his potential, doing work of some kind. He said he was a licensed trainer of therapy, service, and search & rescue dogs, and offered to help me train Toby. I said I'd thought about animal therapy, and he thought Toby would be perfect for the job.

He named a figure for his training fee, and it was far more than I could ever have paid. (My husband would have rolled his eyes at me if I'd even suggested it to him.) He then said that I could train Toby myself, and he would evaluate us when I thought we were ready. I liked that idea much better. I immediately went home, ordered Kathy Diamond Davis' book on therapy dogs and a blue therapy dog vest online, and started researching therapy dog organizations. I also enrolled the two of us in a basic obedience class, to make sure that the training I'd done with him had been correct. We would need to pass the AKC's Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test as well as a therapy evaluation.

When the book arrived, I read it from cover to cover in just a few days, learning a vast amount of very useful information about training a therapy dog. Davis' book is referred to as "the bible of therapy dog training" by those in the field, and I could understand why. She covers all the bases. I didn't understand just how excellent it was until later, after seeing training materials from other sources. I only knew that after reading it, I felt confident enough to train myself and my dog, and began doing it.

I called a local nursing and rehab center, told them that I'd like to start visiting them in preparation for therapy animal evaluation, and was met with enthusiastic welcome. I asked a library if I could bring Toby in with me one day to train him in a library environment, and they asked me to come to their preschool story hour on a regular basis. I was at a YMCA fall kids' fest with Toby, getting him used to the noise and energy level of small children, and the activities director of an adult daycare (who happened to be working a booth there) asked me if I would visit her facility regularly.

I was overwhelmed with the response I was getting. I had never dreamed that we would be invited to so many places so soon! And we were still in training, not yet registered with any therapy organization. I made sure our homeowner's insurance policy covered liability for our pets when we were away from home, and jumped into volunteer "practice." I took both Toby and Tinker with me, at different times, on these visits, and our "clients" loved them.

Toby was amazing in his obedience class. We worked together to develop our teamwork, and learned to trust each other more than ever. One of the instructors and her dog were Delta Society Pet Partners, and she encouraged me to pursue Pet Partner training, evaluation and registration. We talked a bit about the difference between the available registering organizations, and Delta sounded like the right one for us, for many reasons.

To be continued...