So many folks today want their dogs to become therapy dogs! What exactly is a therapy dog? This is a term used to describe Animal Assisted Activities where opportunities for educational, recreational or motivational benefits enhance quality of life. For example, the human handler/volunteer brings their dog to a children’s hospital to play with patients. Trained volunteers who’ve successfully fulfilled minimum requirements of a training program bring their registered therapy dog to participate in a variety of ways and settings such as visiting nursing homes, schools and hospitals. They become a team.
Another term typically used is Animal Assisted Therapy in which the registered therapy dog team is overseen and under the direction of a professional and used as part of the therapy with a specific purpose in mind. For example, to improve a patient’s social skills or range of motion. Both options require the human handler/volunteer to apply learned techniques and skills that identify and recognize signs of stress and is able to assist and work in concert with their dog.
Becoming a therapy dog team bring tremendous satisfaction and reward but it isn’t for every dog! It takes a specific temperament and personality of dog to WANT to do this work! Below is an article written by a friend and trainer that I value and respect who does an exceptional job of describing what job is best for your dog’s personality.
-Elaine
Pack Position & Their Best Role
Written by: Todd Langston founder of OCPACKLIFE.com, Instagram: @todd Langston
Asking a dog to provide emotional support for a human is a big ask and in the last several years the number of support animals has increased 10 fold which is leading to some serious issues with support dogs and how they behave in public.
What’s going on??
Dogs, like humans are born with an innate temperament or personality.
And like people, not all personality types are conducive to supporting the emotional needs of others.
In a pack you will find three general positions or roles that the dogs take. You have the front of the pack, the middle of the pack, and the back of the pack.
The natural role of the front is protection, the natural role of the back is alerting and the natural roll of the middle is to bring the front and the back together.
When trying to place a dog with a human job you want to look at their natural pack position to know what job they can do.
The front of the pack does great police work – the back of the pack is perfect for medical detection such as anticipating seizures or blood sugar drop for diabetics – and the middle of the pack is great for therapy and emotional support.
If you put a front of the pack in the job of emotional support they just don’t care enough to support you. If you put a back of the pack in the job of emotional support they simply can’t handle the stress and pressure – and its why so many support dogs have been in the news lately.
But when you put a middle of the pack dog in the role of emotional support they will hit it out of the park. The middle’s instinctive roll is to always make those around them feel better and they can do it with incredible resiliency so they don’t break down, get nervous or feel the need to protect their owners.
You CANT change these rolls with training so selecting the right dog is key.
The fraudulent certification websites combined with uneducated trainers has led to an epidemic of the wrong dog being picked for the task and the dogs are paying the price.
Select the right dog and it’s like medicine! Shelters and rescues are FULL of happy go lucky dogs that can do the job.
Want to learn how to spot pack position in your dog? Below is a sweet video with a papa dog and his litter of pups to help you!
You have to observe more than one situation to truly assess but you can easily see how a group of pups has forward, middle and back energies.
At the start of the video you see the papa dog jump in the pond and immediately he is followed by one of the pups and you can see the boldness in the way that pup joins his dad.
On the shore you see pups that are curious but not quite bold enough to jump in.
And you see a couple of pups staying back from the edge of the pond, quite uncertain about what to do.
That is a good visual of the front, the middle, and the back.
Next you see them start running up a trail and you see that some pups are up front with dad, some are in the middle and one is slower than the rest and brings up the rear.
This is repeated a few different ways in the video but you start to see how the stronger more confident pups stand out from the rest and how the slower, unsure dogs navigate the same situations.
Also cool to see how the papa dog is making sure the swimmers get back to shore safely and you can see how he makes sure the puppies lagging in the back always get back to the pack. Papa is always calm, confident, loving and joyful.
Humans are famous for unconsciously asking the back and middle dogs to lead. They can’t do it but they take the position anyway…
https://www.wftv.com/news/trending-now/watch-daddy-dog-teaches-his-puppies-to-swim-in-heartwarming-viral-video/498932824