After Dru decided that being a guide dog was not for her, she became a loving pet. As a guide dog, she would have had access to pretty much anywhere her visually impaired partner could go, with few exceptions. A guide dog is a type of service dog, the highest trained working dogs helping people every day. However, Dru is not a service dog, she is a therapy dog. So what does that mean?
Essentially, her job is to be a good dog and make people feel better. This comes in all different forms, from resting her head on people recovering from an injury to laying on the floor and letting kids read to her. A therapy dog is very different from a service dog and an emotional support animal, and has different training requirements and jobs they do.
To become a therapy dog, Dru had to pass a series of aptitude-based tests to determine how she would react in unfamiliar situations because you could never design a test to test every situation a therapy dog team could encounter, nor could you train for all of them. Instead, we practice things like how to recover from a situation in case the dog gets scared. Some of her tests involved people yelling, dropping clipboards, and trying to approach her. Her evaluator looked to gauge her confidence in the situation and how I responded, too. Even though her goal is to help other people, she will never be separated from me when she’s working and we are a team. I give her guidance and control the situation, and she spreads her happiness.
Once a dog has passed their series of tests to become a therapy dog, they can start work. Their jobs can vary greatly depending on what type of work the handler wants to do and what the dog is best suited for. Many dogs visit nursing homes and hospitals to help lift patients’ spirits while they cannot see their pets at home. However, police departments and court rooms also utilize therapy dogs to help people feel more at ease and dogs can even help firefighters deal with their stressful jobs. Outside of the medical and first responder world, therapy dogs frequently visit libraries and schools for a variety of reasons. They can even help people who are in physical therapy by motivating them to throw a ball or walk down a hall.
You might have seen dogs on planes and in no-pet housing, but a therapy dog is not granted those rights. A therapy dog is allowed to go where pets cannot usually go, provided they have the explicit consent of the facility they are visiting. Outside of work, they are just a pet. They get to play and live a normal life every day, and they don’t even have to work every day, in fact most don’t!
If you are trying to find something to work towards with your dog, becoming a therapy dog team is a great idea! You and your dog will learn to listen to each other better and refine your pup’s skills. When you become a team, you get to see the smiles that light up on peoples’ faces the moment you walk in the room. Knowing that you made somebody’s day better, even if it was just one person, is so rewarding and why we continue to work as a therapy dog team.