SCAS Practical Training for Therapy Dogs

Today I attended Day 1 (of 2) of the above with Nina Bondarenko.

A practical course aimed at those wishing to take their dogs into a therapy situation or visiting programme.

Practical training takes place over two days spread 4 weeks apart at The Dogs Trust Training Centre at Harefield, London.

This is a practical course aimed at those wishing to take their dogs into a therapy situation or visiting programme. The course is made up of two practical training days split approximately 4 weeks apart and some preparatory work to prepare for the training days.

The preparatory work is designed to help prepare with underpinning knowledge that needed to effectively understand the practical sessions.

This course is designed to be at an introductory level and will cover the following aspects:

• The development of Animal Assisted Interventions (preparatory work)
• Canine Ethology - behaviour and how it relates to work in therapy (preparatory work)
• Temperament and behaviour requirements for therapy dogs (preparatory work)

Practical elements:
• Basics on cue and how they relate to AAT and visiting programmes

• Go to mat and stay there
• Retrieve to hand
• Don't touch
• Chin on knee
• Tug and Play
• Take a treat only when given permission
• Touching on specialist tasks.

I have often wondered why, as a PAT Approved Temperament Assessor, there is not a structured training programme for potential therapy dogs.

I came away with some ideas to work with clients on as well to teach dogs life skills whether or not they intend to actively use their dogs as therapy dogs.

http://www.scas.org.uk/

Sounds really good. They didn't have any training like this when I joined PAT dogs years ago. You just had to have your dog assessed as a suitable temperament by a vet.

I used to visit an elderly person's home regularly when I had a PAT dog. They bring so much pleasure to people.

He did one strange thing-he knew he was not allowed to jump up at the furniture or at people which he never did but one day he was sitting next to an elderly man but the man seemed in his own little world. Angus jumped up and lay on the arm of his chair (he was small-Cairn terrier) and then the man turned and smiled at him and patted him. I learnt the next week that the man died the next day. I wondered if Angus picked up a different smell about the man that he could tell he was poorly?