General Information
Welcome to the wonderful and rewarding world of pet therapy! You'll enjoy it so very much!
It's rewarding to know that you are not only bringing joy and happiness to others, but that you are improving the quality of their lives as well as your own. And by becoming certified as a therapy pet team, you and your pet can be recognized for the love and the service that you are providing.
In order to begin making visits as a certified therapy pet team covered under the Love On A Leash insurance policy, you must obtain the basic Pet Provided Therapy certification. This requires completion of the required training and obedience certification (for dogs), completion of the required hours of supervised visits, and submission of the required forms to the national headquarters.
Certification as a therapy pet team requires that all supervised visits be completed by that particular team. For example, if a husband and wife plan to work together with a particular pet, then all supervised hours must include both of them and their pet. If only the wife makes a visit with the pet, then that visit qualifies only as a supervised visit for her and the pet, not for the couple and the pet. If each want to become certified to work with their pet, then each must complete their own individual 10 hours of supervised visits. No person (or dog) can do visits representing Love On A Leash without completing their 10 supervised hours.
In addition to the basic certification, there are various advanced degrees that can obtained as a pet assisted therapy team:
Advanced degrees in Pet Provided Therapy for work with children or teenagers includes: Day Care, Special Education, Emotional Disabilities, Physical Disabilities, or Special Circumstances (drug rehabilitation, runaways, etc.)
Advanced degress for work with the elderly includes: Social Work, Hospice/Critical Care, or Alzheimers/Senile Dementia.
Others include Counseling, Public Education, and Crisis Intervention.
In order to obtain advanced degrees, teams must complete required training, have worked a minimum of 50 hours in their particular specialty, and submit a written essay describing their work and experience.
Please review the general guidelines for more information on how to obtain your basic certification, plus the Requirements for Dogs for canine teams.
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