therapy dog..???

spiritdogs

Why is Nikon d/q'd "automatically"???

"Dogs trained for bite work are not eligible."
http://www.wmtd.org/content.aspx?page_id=275&club_id=276397&item_id=818

"Dogs that have been trained to aggressively protect and/or have been encouraged to bite, even if it is a component of a dog sport (e.g., bite work that is part of Schutzhund) may not be Pet Partners."
http://www.deltasociety.org/Page.aspx?pid=262

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYiKfzxfO2A

Oh well, their loss!

Coke would love therapy work, we often take him to visit my DH's "kids" (young adults with disabilities) and he just eats it up.  He doesn't have the obedience yet to go "out in the field" with a working group though, and I really think the obedience part is important even if the temperament is correct.  I'm leaving that one up to DH, whether or not he wants to polish the obedience.  I don't feel therapy work is something one can do "on the side" along with everything else so if DH wants to do it, he will have to commit.  It see it more like SAR work, which I would also love to do but again, don't have the time to fully commit myself to the group, dog or no.

I'm guessing our local hospital requires Delta/WMTD because of the insurance policies.  I don't know anyone who does therapy work on their own that has $1mil+ insurance.

Therapy Dogs, Inc. has a primary insurance policy for liability, too.  Also, they do not discriminate by breed (with the exception of wolves and wolf hybrids, which are not allowed).  I recently tested an Alapaha (great dog, passed with flying colors).  There is a zero tolerance policy for aggression, but no ban on Schutzhund dogs, and I know of at least one SchIII Dobe member http://www.wittrockdobermans.com/.  So, I guess if you wanted to test Nikon, you could.

I guess you can test Nikon with TDInc. if they took this guy:-))  http://www.wittrockdobermans.com/

TDInc. has a primary liability policy, and they do not discriminate by breed (except that wolves and wolf hybrids need not apply).

Both TDI or TDInc would work but then I'd be on my own.  The local group uses the Delta criteria and neither them or Delta allow SchH dogs.

Liesje

I'm guessing our local hospital requires Delta/WMTD because of the insurance policies.  I don't know anyone who does therapy work on their own that has $1mil+ insurance.

I know TDI and TD, Inc. both have high dollar insurance (TD, Inc I think is $5 M presently), and even like 10 years ago when we were certified thru Bright & Beautiful we had over a million on each of David and I. 

It has to do with the certification -- not who is with you at the moment -- did that make sense? 

The problem is that all the good places around here schedule dogs through the local group, and the local group follows Delta guidelines and has their own insurance policy and requirements for training and testing.  So if we did TDI or TDInc, we'd be on our own and I'm not sure what places would even allow us in, they would wonder why we weren't trained and certified with all the others.  The children's hospital, veteran's hospital, ruff readers, battered women shelter, etc all accept dogs through the local group.  Also I think if you do TDI they do not allow you to register with any other orgranization.

I got Kenya tested with TDI but never sent in the papers because it became clear she didn't really enjoy the work even if her obedience is top notch.

As I said in my post way above -- typically it's some group of people who open various facilities to pet therapy, and likewise to other groups.

And generally they have reasons why they have not gone with Delta (or whatever group is at issue). 

A great majority of facilities only really care that there is some form of formal certification.  A LOT of people have gotten extremely disillusioned with Delta because it tends to be extremely expensive to do their certification.  It's not impossible to be certified by Delta and NOT go to their classes, but it's discouragingly hard. 

When *I* started here they automatically got MY back up because of my own limitations (and to say that woman made me mad with her "you couldn't keep up" comment is a vast understatement) so going in to another facility wasn't hard for me.   And no one in Florida had ever HEARD of Bright and Beautiful (altho they were the primary certifying agency of the SAR dogs who initially responded after 9-11 simply because they were closest being NY based).

I've honestly never gone en masse with another group -- that would probably make ME very uncomfortable (because I tend to watch my own dogs SO carefully, and I'd be uncomfortable with a large group) so I've always made all my own arrangements in any hospital or facility we've ever visited. 

A lot of facilities don't know the names of the agencies -- often you really have to educate as you work your way in. 

I've never really had a hugely hard time getting in --  Arnold Palmer Hospital was NOT easy but they just don't have a pet therapy frame of mind.  They have their "rules" whether or not they make sense (like seeing the woman standing there handing out Purel to kids, who takes the wad of paper slips she's just collected with the kids 'Permissions' from their parents and STICKS THEM IN HER MOUTH while she wipes her own hands with Purel.)

Sureeeeeeeeeeee she's REALLY concerned about germs.  uhhhhh huh!! Yep!!!  The ONLY place you can get a germ is on your hands.  I was waiting for her to brush her teeth with it.  But nope.  Apparently you can stick anything in your mouth!!

But I honestly don't think you can make a lot of sweeping statements about the facilities in your area - you might be surprised to find that once you got outside of whatever umbrella those facilities are supported with, you might find an entirely different story.  Now if several hospitals, medical facilities, etc. are all under the umbrella of one parent source (like the "Florida Hospital" system here is all Seventh Day Adventist owned ... and the Arnold Palmer organization has several hospital facilities all under its auspices) -- when there is a like parent company then they're all going to have like requirements probably -- but beyond that, it's likely a different story.  Altho, I'm sure it's possible that if pet therapy is simply a "new thing" there then it may not have spread.

Most of the spreading from one certifying agency to another has to do with people being discontent -- either because of cost, expectations, lack of consistency in testing, etc. -- those are the things that make people gravitate from one to another.

You don't have to go through the local agency, but if you don't, it will narrow your opportunities (yes we do have several medical/hospital "chains" here and some of the places actually require certain credentials on the dog's vest in order to get in).  The nice thing is that they already have established relationships to dozens of places.  I could go around to a bunch of different places and try to get in there or go to the places that already use the agency and try to convince them otherwise, but why?  There's really no reason NOT to go through them since they offer really good training and testing (the program we did with Kenya was pretty thorough and they've since gotten better as far as screening the dogs' temperaments).  I'm not sure why it would be a bad thing that they are so well established?  They are a large group but they don't actually do visits as a large group, sorry if that was misleading.  Often they go in pairs of dogs/people that work well together.  That way if something bad is happening (like someone is being inappropriate with you or your dog) you are not alone defending yourself or your dog.  My class went to a hospital for training as a group but the group owns space there specifically for training (they have a mock hospital room and mock rehab area set up).  When we went out into the hospital to practice certain things, we went as pairs - two handlers, and one handler was an instructor.