Therapy dogs do not have the same status as service dogs. They must be invited to visit a place or person. They do not have the same 'rights'.


I own and train therapy dogs. My current dog is Gracie, a Bouvier des Flandres.

My previous dogs were Bently (a huge, jet black bouvier) who has crossed the bridge and Jeremiah who is retired but keeps Gracie in line.

I started this because of Bently. I adopted him from the American Bouvier Rescue League in 1999. It was required in the adoption contract that I attend at least 1 training class. We both enjoyed the class so I started wondering about another. He passed the CGC (Canine Good Citizen) evaluation so I wanted something else.

Anyway, my mom was in a nursing home and my wife insisted we take Bently with us. I told her they would never let us take a tank like him into a place where people were so fragile. She called, they said bring him, we did.

My mom saw the big blank fluffy tank and sort of woke up mentally. We had a good conversation (the last good conversation as it turned out).

As we were leaving 4 or 5 people asked if their loved one could see Bently. Bently was enjoying all the attention so we visited around with different people. Bently enjoyed himself and so did I.

As we were leaving a light came on in my head. Is this dog a therapy dog? I don't have a clue. I didn't even know how a dog became a therapy dog.

On the internet I went, found a group locally (Delta Society), and applied. 10 weeks later we were a therapy dog team.

Over time we both became passionate about our volunteer work. Bently was starting to get old (he was 5 when I adopted him). I found a bouvier in the local shelter and pulled his fuzzy butt out and therapy dog 2 was ready in a year. Bently was retired after 4 years as my partner and Jeremiah went to work. As Jeremiah aged and after 6 years as a therapy dog I retired him.

A year before his retirement I adopted Gracie from the American Bouvier Rescue League. She is my partner now. Unfortunately for her, her partner is very slow and has to hide a lot of pain on visits. Now, we only do Reading Education Assistance Dog Visits. (Children read to my dog). I have been a handler for 11 years now.

I am also a Delta Society Evaluator and a Reading Education Assistance Dog Instructor.

Yes, I work for a living as a systems analyst.

The dogs have been my sanity. I love the training, the visits and the people.

I have been forced to slow down because of back pain but I use my therapist for myself as well. I'm very fortunate to have two in house therapist right now.

I will take a spinal cord stimulator for a test trial on the 30th and maybe we can start visiting the hospital again. At least that is my hope.

I know everyone on this thread knows how important our pets are for us. They do reduce pain. The give us something to look forward to. They stop feelings of isolation and even fear.

I'll stop here but I just am very happy to find a 'pet' area in Neuro Talk. It naturally belongs! Just ask me.