Therapy Dog Training for Puppies

Welcome to Puppy Talk, episode number 89. I'm your host, Dale Buchanan. Today we're gonna talk about therapy dog training programs. My dog, Dixie, is a therapy dog. She got certified in August of 2023 when she was three and a half years old. Through the time that I had her at 10 weeks up till the time that she got certified as a therapy dog, I worked with her on many things that I'm gonna discuss in this podcast. In addition, I'm going to share with you the process to get your puppy or dog ready for testing and observing to get certified and registered as a therapy dog through Alliance of Therapy Dogs, which is a TDI will put that link in the show notes. Let me first explain what a therapy dog is because a lot of people get confused between ESA, which is emotional support, animal therapy, dog and service dogs.

A therapy dog lends comfort and affection to people in a facility setting or specific individuals who require visitation to deal with a physical or emotional problem. Therapy dogs are not service dogs because service dogs provide a specific need to one person, and service dogs have access to special locations like stores and restaurants, for example, therapy. Dogs do not. As I said, my dog, Dixie is a therapy dog, and we have occasional visits to retirement communities, which are assisted living communities and hospitals in the Northern Alabama area where she goes there under my supervision and gives comfort to people in need. This is comfort where she will go up to them and sit and let them pet her. She will sit on their lap and let them pet her that way. There's a lot of ways for her to give this comfort to people. Basically, she provides comfort to people in need by spreading her love and her calmness to them when they give her affection.

That's really all that a therapy dog is, is to provide that comfort to people in need. How do you train your dog to be a therapy dog? This is a great question. First of all, all therapy dogs have to be at least a year old through the Alliance of Therapy Dogs. Some places like Pet Partners require your dog to be even older than that. They can't even start the training for therapy dog until they are 1-year-old. I've had many puppies that I train to be therapy dogs, but they can't get their certification and registration until they're a year old. There are four steps that I recommend to complete the therapy dog registration and certification process. Number one, complete a basic dog or puppy obedience program. This is a no-brainer.

The Puppy has to learn how to obey commands, walk on a loose leash, interact with people without jumping, mouthing, or barking, and be non-reactive to other dogs and people. That's the first step, so the puppy must complete basic puppy obedience training program. Step number two, to get a A KC Canine Good Citizen certification, this is a comprehensive 10 item test that shows that your puppy or dog can be very good in public, their good being touched, being handled, greeting people without jumping can walk on a loose leash, can obey and has a connection and a relationship with the owner, which is very important for Therapy dog certification. Step number three, I recommend to complete the A KC community canine training, which is Advanced canine Good citizen. There are added test items in here that will show that your puppy or dog is very capable of being calm in public and being very social in all types of situations with all types of distractions and stimuli.

Step number four, and the final step if you're going to use Alliance of Therapy Dogs is to go to their website and find a tester observer in your area and get tested and observed. It's that simple. What you're gonna do is you're gonna meet up with this person. They're going to test your dog on various items, very similar to the A KC canine good citizen, and then they're going to take it to three locations with you to see how well you and your dog interact with people in public. This is how you get registered and certified as a therapy dog through the Alliance of Therapy Dogs. There are other organizations you can go through to get your puppy or dog registered and certified as a therapy dog, such as pet partners. I'm not familiar with these organizations, their requirements and their protocol for getting your dog certified and registered as a therapy dog.

I suggest if you want to really explore this, that you do your due diligence and check out all of the opportunities and resources in your area. How do you know if your dog would make a good therapy dog? This is another great question. Therapy dogs are well socialized at an early age. They don't play bite, they don't jump, they don't bark. They don't cause any problems. They have no fear, anxiety, stress, or aggression. That is a given. All of those things are non-negotiable Therapy. Dogs are typically well-mannered, well-behaved and have a great temperament for socializing and greeting people and providing comfort to them.

Even at an early age, even though a therapy dog Can't be certified until 1-year-old, they can still go through some of the training so that they can have the right temperament when they become a year old. Would you make a good therapy dog handler? This is probably the most important thing. The tester and observer for getting your registration and certification as a therapy dog team is really watching you and the dog. Most of what they're watching is you and how you communicate with the dog, how you give them cues and they obey hand signals and they obey how you keep your cool, how you don't get worried, fearful, anxious, or frustrated during the testing and observing, and how you will never get that way when your dog's having a therapy session with people in a retirement community or hospital or school or wherever you're going. This is so very important because how you feel and how you act is exactly how your dog is going to feel and act.

If you are calm and relaxed and social, your dog most likely will be calm, relaxed, and social. If you're confident and self-assured, positive and optimistic, your dog will be the same way. Whatever you bring to the table as the team of therapy dog, your puppy is going to mimic and mirror you, so the handler, which is typically the owner of the puppy or dog, is going to be the most important component to the whole process, so it's not just about the temperament of the dog, it's also about the temperament of the owner of that dog because you are a team. One final thing I would like to mention before I finish this episode is that sometimes people get dogs with the intention of them being a therapy dog, and the dog does not have the right temperament for being a therapy dog, and maybe the dog does not want to be a therapy dog.

This is very important to observe. It's the same thing as having a child and wanting them to be a doctor, but that child wants to be a certified public accountant. You just don't know what the puppy is going to want to do when they grow up. Are they going to want to be a therapy dog? Are they going to have the joy of doing it? This is very important. They can't be forced into it. The puppy has to be doing the therapy dog work voluntarily and on its own will. It can't be forced into it, and this is extremely important to remember when you get a dog,

if you have an expectation of them being a therapy dog, you may have to let it go. If your dog is not capable and qualified and want to be a therapy dog, you just have to know when it’s Right, right, and when it's not right to push your dog to that position of working as a therapy dog. As I said earlier, Dixie wasn't certified and registered until she was three and a half years old, and that's a long time. If I thought, well, at 10 weeks she's gonna be a therapy dog, I had to wait almost three and a half years for her to be registered and certified, but that's okay because she developed herself during that period. Now she's gonna be four years old in a few weeks, and she's one of the most fantastic therapy dogs ever. She's very zen, very calm, very good with people, very good at her job when she's at work as a therapy dog, and trust me, it is work. These dogs are going to work to do a job, and they have to be willing to do it, not forced into it. I hope this information was helpful to you. If you have any questions about therapy, dog training or anything else, you can reach out to me through Puppy talk podcast.com. Have a great day.