Talk:Therapy dog

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[edit] Enjoyed the Nat'l Geographic Article

Good addition, Elf. Josie and I just recently got therapy dog certified. We've visited hospitals one evening a week the last three weeks. The "magic" the dogs work on patients is immediately evident.Wcrowe 03:14, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good for you! I got 2 of my dogs tested and one passed and the other was "great BUT you need to work on him jumping on people first." Duh. He didn't jump much and wasn't rough about it, but of course that's too much for therapy dogs. At the time, he was 7 and my older guy was about to turn 9 and I just let it slide and didn't go back for training... Now I have a wild & crazy young dog who's not at all suitable for therapy, and my older guy is almost 13 (jeez, hard to believe it was that long ago!) and I'll have to wait for another life or a different dog to try again, if I can tear myself away from agility long enough. Elf | Talk 05:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Probable Incorrect Information

A recent change to the article states that an ADA certified therapy dog can legally accompany an owner anywhere. I believe this information is erroneous for two reasons: First, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the law, not a certifying organization. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as an "ADA-certified" dog. Secondly, my research indicates that therapy dogs cannot fit the category of service animals, despite what they may be called by certain people or groups. Here is an excerpt of a transcript of a webcast sponsored by the Disability Law Resource Project at the Independent Living Research Utilization staff at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research affiliated with the Baylor College of Medicine. The person speaking is Sally Conway of the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

I think part of the problem is that we have so many different labels and descriptions for animals that may in fact be service animals and somebody else using that same term for a different animal that may not be a service animal. Generally speaking, if we're talking about therapy, comfort, emotional support animals -- and I think those typically are used interchangeably. Those are not going to be service animals under the ADA because they haven't been trained to -- remember that three-part -- that definition, they haven't been trained to do work or perform a task for the benefit of an individual with a disability. Typically, comfort, emotional support animals by their very presence certainly performs a valuable service, but it's an innate ability. It's their mere presence. It doesn't reach the level of having been trained to do work or perform tasks. So if I am -- if I am using those terms sort of -- I hope that I'm using them correctly. They would not be covered. And, again, we would look at not necessarily what the animal is called because different people call different animals different things, we look at what service it performs on behalf of that individual with a disability. I mean, and I know that there are issues of companion animals and I'm not really sure what a companion animal is. Again, the bottom line is what does that animal do for that individual with a disability? If the presence of the animal -- the mere presence performs -- you know, it meets the need of that individual with a disability, I think it's absolutely critical and it's wonderful, but as we talk about the definition as of today, that is not a service animal under the ADA.

So the problem arises because some people use the term "therapy dog" to describe a comfort or companion animal. Such animals are not true therapy dogs. Therefore, I think the recent additional text referring to ADA-certified therapy dogs should be deleted.The Dogfather 18:14, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm guessing that you're right about that, but I have no info one way or t'other. Perhaps the original poster has more clarifying info? If not forthcoming shortly, the info shd probably be removed based on this info. Elf | Talk 22:03, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC

I'm training one of my dogs right now. It's hard but I'm really going at it now that it's warmer outside.