| The use of dogs and cats to provide
therapeutic services to patients requiring long-term care is know
as animal assisted therapy. Animal assisted therapy programs work
closely with health care organizations to give patients mental
stimulation on a one on one basis. If you are interested in involving
your pet in animal assisted therapy, there a few things that you
will need to know to get started. The initial step will be to
evaluate your dog's personality. You will need to make sure your
dog is not hyper, is confident, and very tolerant of noise and
touching. It is also important that your dog be very tolerant
to pain that may occur due to children or the elderly falling
and inadvertently hurting the dog.
You dog will need to be friendly to strangers and other animals.
Your dog may be touched continuously, left alone with a stranger,
and will need to be extremely tolerant of cats. If your dog
bites or harms a person or another animal, you could potentially
face a lawsuit. While you would hope that any person that comes
in contact with your dog would have been instructed on how to
greet a dog properly, it is always possible that the patient
will know nothing about dogs.
Look for organizations in your area that will
work with you and your dog. The organization you choose will
need to be able to certify your dog according to the minimum
requirements for animal assisted therapy, and maintain current
liability insurance and have an excellent reputation for providing
top quality pets to animal assisted therapy programs. Hospitals,
nursing homes, and assisted living facilities are more likely
to allow visits from dogs and other pets if the dogs are sponsored
by a reputable organization.
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