How To Get Into Therapy?

[savethebulliedbreeds]

Hehehe, I know what everyone is thinking. I am actually wondering how to get my dog into therapy work.

Hey everyone I live in a small town in Saskatchewan, Canada. I recently aquired an American Staffordshire from a dog trainer that was trained as a therapy dog, he also started his training to become a police dog. Unfortunatley, they could not find him work and had to give him up. They just didn't end up having time for him because the rest of the dogs that were in training already had jobs waiting for them.

Now my question is is how do I get Magnus, my Amstaff involved in therapy work. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time and now I have the dog to do it with.

Any suggestions how I would get him started in this?

 

[Crotalus]

The Delta Society is who you want to get in contact with.
http://www.deltasociety.org/

They do a lot of temperment trials and socialization trials/certifications etc. and have a lot of networking to find places for animals to go do their thing.

 

[jess2416]

Hehehe....I was thinking that

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

I kind of need something in Canada.....any suggestions?

 

[SummerRiot]

... is this a double post? I could have sworn I posted to something like this lol

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

Yeah, it is. Sorry about that. I didnt have a clue where to post this. Sorry again.

 

[mjb]

I know 2 trainers in my area that train and certify dogs in therapy work.

There is a large teaching hospital here that evidently need both human volunteers and therapy dogs. I'm calling them therapy dogs. What they want are people who will bring their dogs in to visit patients. That's what I think therapy dogs are, right?

A great number of their patients, possibly the majority, are people who don't have many visitors. A friend of mine started volunteering as a visitor, but decided to start taking her dog in.

She has told me several times that the director (of volunteers) is trying to get more people to bring their dogs in. I told her I wanted to get mine better trained first, but she said she talked to them, and they've told her I can make an appointment and bring my dog in. They'll visit us for awhile and let us try it. Her words...they're sure we will be fine.

I really thought the dogs had to have this certification to do this, but, at least at this hospital, they don't!! I haven't felt comfortable with Spanky's level of training to take him in yet, though.

 

[DanL]

Delta won't accept any dog that has been trained in any kind of bite work (police, schutzhund, etc).

I'd be very careful about taking a dog without some kind of TD certificate into any hospital, for liability issues alone. Your dog needs to have a pretty forgiving temprament and rock hard nerves. We were working with Gunnar on that but it was under the direct supervision of a TDI/Delta trainer, and we didn't do room visits, only meet and greets in the public areas of the hospital.

 

[savethebulliedbreeds]

I looked into the CGC & CGN titles and what Magnus needs to do to pass. I know that he would be able to pass them except with the one where you have to leave the area....he gets kind of upset so I will have to work on that. Everything else will be a walk in the park to him. Speaking of a walk in the park. I took him to a function in our town where families get together for concerts and hot dogs and that sort of thing and there was a lot of people there and kids and other dogs, loud noises, and a ton of distractions. He was great. Wasn't interested in other dogs or people (unless the people took an interest in him), and then he was quite happy to stand there and be petted. I can even walk him through a flock of geese on the pathway and he doesn't care about them. He won't even pull at the leash or really even show that he is interested in them. But ne ways, I just figured I would give you some info on his personality. Hes very laid back and well behaved when he knows needs to be (around kids, other dogs and people he doesn't know), although he knows that he can play with me and when its just the two of us he becomes a clumsy fool trying to play lol