Therapy Dog Certification
My OES, Opie, is 14 months now and has been through multiple obedience classes and is a fantastic, calm dog in every way. Next week we'll be starting another obedience class and will be testing for Canine Good Citizen after the 4 week session is over. Assuming he'll pass (I know, not always the case) I'd like to keep him on the path to become a therapy dog. My question is, what is the main difference between all of the organizations out there such as Therapy Dogs International, Therapy Dogs, Inc., and Pet Partners? We live in Michigan and the closest therapy group is Therapaws and you have to be under the Therapy Dogs International umbrella to be a member. What are your thoughts, experiences and recommendations? Anything I should know before choosing an organization? Thank you kindly! |
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| We have many members of TDI on this forum who can help you in deciding which organization would be best for you and your sheepie. I am so excited for you~~if you do become a pet therapy team, you will have a very gratifying experience. Good Luck, keep us posted on your progress...and...pictures of your sweetie, please  ,,,we just love seeing pictures and hearing stories about our forum sheepies.... |
| Nelson and I are with TDI and we've been happy with their program. We belong to a chapter so have local group support and having liability insurance is a big plus. There isn't a great deal of additional training to become certified either. The per-year cost is reasonable and you have a lot of freedom to visit where you want as long as TDI is aware of it. Just be sure to check what therapy group frequents the facilities you plan to visit in. Some organizations will not allow multiple groups to visit at the same time. |
Thanks Maggie, that's very helpful. I'm glad to hear positive things about TDI so far, I think that's the road we may follow.  |
I've been volunteering with my dog(s) as therapy dogs for almost 30 years.... it'll be 29 years this summer.  I work with TDI - Therapy Dogs International. I've also been an evaluator for TDI for almost 20 yrs now, and a CGC evaluator too for almost that long. Chewie and I tested for the TDI - DSR team (disaster stress relief dogs) and we made that the fall of 2011! We are part of only about 55 teams in the US with this level of certification. Chewie is the only OES too.  Currently I have 3 of mine active as TDI therapy dogs - Chewie and Bond (OES) and Riley (rat terrier). Volunteering with your dogs as a therapy dog team is a great way to give back to your community.  Also - the current avatar picture of Chewie and Bond by a Christmas tree is at a visit - we do college finals stress relief, and this was from a visit at Bethany Lutheran College this past December. We did a group shot of our chapter group who was there, and then I cropped this one with my 2 in it. We now have 3 area colleges we visit each semester during finals week, in addition to the usual hospitals, assisted livings, group homes, nursing homes, preschools, reading programs, summer camps. Two of our chapter members were just in the paper from a visit to the Children's Museum yesterday. We have a very active and old chapter (formed in 1985 and I'm a charter member), and we have lots of group visits. That is really nice to have, especially for new teams just getting started. We have about 25-30 member teams currently. Then many of us also go to local or different sites and facilities on our own. |
| got sheep - that sounds wonderful! So it seems like if you're a part of a good chapter there will be plenty of opportunities, I was concerned about going through everything only to be needed once or twice a year. Plus, it looks like TDI is the most popular and the way to go, glad to see. Opie is so wonderful and gentle I just want to share him with everybody.  |
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