January 24 at Lincoln South Rotary - Domesti-PUPS

Therapy dogs are dogs who go with their owners to volunteer in settings such as schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. Therapy dogs are not required to be trained in any way.

 

Merri said that do about 19 site visits per month providing therapy for students who may be struggling in school - possibly being bullied to patients in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

 

 

She said that they also train dogs to prepare them for adoption. They get dogs from rescue facilities and work with them to ensure that they are adoptable.

 

Merri spent most of her time talking about service dogs. ADA defines service dogs as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.

 

Therapy dogs can be provided to help people with these types of disabilities:

Physical

Intellectual/Developmental

Sensory/Neurological

 

Service dogs are trained to specifically help one person - to assist with their particular disability. Merri gave some examples of the specific tasks that a service is trained to do.

 

Notify.

The dog with bump or hit the leg of the person or a family member alerting them that they are about to have a medical episode. They may go running to find a family member. The owner and dog share a secret word. If used, the dog is trained to sign down and wait until the episode passes.

 

Safety:

They may be trained to help a person having a seizure - rolling them on their side and laying close until someone arrives to help.

 

They may also lay across the person's legs to keep them still such as if a person is a runner. They may be trained to drop to keep a person from wandering or walking away. A dog may be trained to lay across the top of the person's legs for a patient with anxiety issues.

 

Brace is one of the tasks - a person can use the dog to help them stand such as to pull up from a chair. Of course, the person must be careful with their hand placement in order for the dog to provide the support needed.

 

All dogs are trained on typical words like phone, shoe, door, etc. But, they may be specifically trained for a particular need. A person may keep medical supplies in a backpack for example and a dog can be trained to get the backpack for the patient.

 

Merri stated that it takes about 2 years to train a dog for the specific tasks and that they currently have about a 5 year waiting list. She did say that cases may be shuffled around depending on the urgency of the need. The support dogs are all large breed because of the types of tasks they are expected to perform. They cost around $28,000.