Hi Maenads,
First of all, I dig your avatar
🙂
Secondly, yes I have been working as part of a therapy dog team with my dog, a welsh corgi, for just over three years. I LOVE IT!! I'm not a typical pre-med, more of a career changer/medic screwing around in grad school now but I'll give you my experience.
One thing to be aware of before you get into it- there are a lot of different qualifying organizations, for example there's the Delta Society, TDI, the SPCAs run some, and some hospitals train and run their own therapy dog teams... so I'd find maybe a facility you're interested in FIRST and then see who coordinates their therapy dog visits and go from there. The training, depending on what organization you go through, can be very long, confusing and expensive. I do think that, because of the number of people interested in doing it, unfortunately there are some predatory "dog trainers" out there who do bs "certifications" for Therapy Dog whatever and you basically pay through the nose and then no one recognizes your cert. Also, the certs don't always transfer between facilities... which is annoying. So for example I've worked in SF as a therapy dog team however now that I am in Stanford we are going to have to re-cert through THEIR therapy dog organization... even though we've already done 3 years of visits and paid $200 for the last training course that was 30 hours long! Anyways... just be smart and do your due diligence about WHO trains the therapy dog teams at facilities where you'd like to volunteer. And how much their training is, how long it takes, and what their volunteer availability is.
Moving on! The training varies, but here's what we did:
30 hour course- basic obedience (if you have a AKC Canine Good Citizen you can grandfather some of this...) + medical stuff. Can the dog sit politely for a visit? Receive pets? Receive treats GENTLY? Get his ears pulled? Get harassed by crazies and stay cool? Be in a strange environment and stay calm? Stay under your voice command control AT ALL TIMES on leash and off?
The exam was tough... he had to SIT and stay seated and not even LOOK when the instructor dropped a WHOLE CHICKEN WING on the ground next to him. We failed this one the first round and had to work on it for two weeks and go back and re-test
Another one was he had to not be spooked by a blasting air horn (for like... if alarms go off at a facility or their is a code/etc). We practiced this with the fire trucks at my ambulance bay station HQ. My coworkers thought I was nuts I kept asking them to lay on the horns for my dog. But I basically treated hard, heavy and often and he eventually associated airhorn blasts with treats.
Other test was to get crutches waved around at him in his face and not get spooked, same with can't flinch or be scared getting his paw stepped on by a walker. Again, we worked with treats. Finally he had to get rolled right next to by a wheelchair.
Your training might be different and have different tests depending on the organization.
Anyways, we work in different facilities. My favorite is inpatient rehab, mainly because our dog went through a neurosurgery and rehab from being completely paralyzed after a spinal cord injury, so I feel like those patients really love him and like his story. But we also do Alzheimer Day facilities, juvenile psychiatric inpatient, regular old SNFs (but for these visits I am PSYCHO about not letting him walk around on the ground or go in anyone's room if they have contact precautions... ymmv... I am kinda a mrsa-aphobe as my normal day to day baseline on the rig and then to compound that my vet was telling me about some mrsa dog pts so I got skerred and kinda am freaked now when i bring him him into snfs). I give his paws a nice wipedown with my ambo bleach wipes and a bath generally after most visits.
We also do a Puppy Dog Tails reading to kids visit, which isn't THERAPY DOG stuff really... the kiddos just read to him at the library. They're not patients, just regular kids working on reading. That one is REALLY FUN but everyone and their mom wants to do those visits so we are only able to sign up for them about 1x a month.
Anyways... best of luck and have fun if you decide to do it!!
Btw there are also therapy cats, therapy iguannas... what have you. Lotsa different types of ani-mules. Whatever the volunteer has that people and patients might be interested in seeing and brighten up their day.
But it has been VERY rewarding, I love it, and my dog loves it too. He loves all the attention he gets... just basks in it, very enjoyable bonding experience for the two of us!
