Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others

by Kathy Diamond Davis

Share the love and companionship of an animal with others by becoming a therapy dog team. Everything you need to know to select, socialize and train your dog for this important and rewarding work. Includes information about safety, liability and professionalism.

Genres: Dogs, Animals, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

Reviews

[Stephen Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book. Very practical, down to what clothes to wear when you go on visits to care facilities to help bring some comfort to people with your dog. Would be a good resource for people who want to use their dog to visit people in nursing facilities. I didn't see anything too out of the ordinary for the training information, and a fair amount of the information may be reached with your own common sense, but did find it interesting to think of the importance of having a dog as a focal point nad how it can provide orientation to reality.

'People are attracted to the sight of a dog. Filmmakers use this device frequently. Sometimes a dog moves across the screen for no other reason than to get you to look! If you walk with your dog, you have sure noticed how people are drawn to it. This helps people focus on the moment.'

For that reason, dogs provide a focal point and motivation for those with Alzheimer's disease or children with learning disabilities or attention-deficit problems.

So glad I spent the time to read this book.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Therapy dogs are being used more and more. Heard they are now using them in colleges to help with anxiety and other issues students bring.

[Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful information. Started the book thinking I wanted to do therapy work, finished it thinking I didn't want the kind of dog that would excel at that kind of work.

[Kathy Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource to understand what a therapy dog is and how to help your personal therapy dog serve others.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book and have put on my "must own shelf." I wanted to make notes in the margins and underline things.
I have trained two dogs in the past to work around people. One was a lab and the other was a pit bull mix. The pit bull mix was a natural. A smart and wonderfully tempered dog that just loved kids!
At one time I was working with a child with Aspergers Syndrome and she was one of the few that he would full engage with. It was wonderful to see. He was even eventually self motivated to learned to use the phone so he could call my house and talk with her!

The Lab was wonderful in long term care facilities and would get up onto patients beds that were bed bound. Some of the people had not been able to be around dogs for years. It was an amazing thing to see their joy at just touching him.

If you think that you might be interested in this as a volunteer opportunity, I think that this book gives you a great way to start.
This book is an easy book to follow for beginners and a really good refresher for myself.
I highly recommend it to anyone.

[Erin Gayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, detailed introduction to therapy dog work-- but honestly it would be useful to anyone looking to choose and raise a dog who is especially good around people. I came to this book because there is so little written about training autism service dogs, and therapy dog work is closer to what autism service dogs do than service work for physically disabled people. Overall an accessible, useful guide to mindfully raising a dog for therapeutic work.

[Kellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that this book would be an excellent reference for people who are considering getting into animal therapy, or who are involved with therapy dogs but didn't take a preparatory class of any kind. Since Shae and I took an extensive class in order to become a certified AAT team, I was already familiar with much of the material in this book.

[Pam Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for those considering pet therapy work. Read it twice it's so full of great information.

[Jillybean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping this would motivate me to train my border collie to be a therapy dog - however, it did not. And we did not become a therapy team. Oh well! One can dream!