For Those Interested in Making Your Labradoodle or Goldendoodle a Therapy Dog

[Adina P]

There are three big national organizations:

Delta Society
Therapy Dogs International
Therapy Dogs Incorporated

There are also smaller local groups, the names of which I do not know.

Rosco and I are registered with Delta Society (certification is not applicable because Delta doesn't train the dogs only registers them based on passing an evaluation).

I believe most if not all of the above offer liability insurance as part of membership--which is nice in case anything bad ever happens (unlikely but ya never konw). And most, if not all, offer training classes or workshops.

At least with Delta (maybe all?) their training classes are NOT required. However, in general the pass rate is lower for those who have not been through classes. And yet both Rosco and I and three other local teams passed in the last year without having taken classes...so it is TOTALLY doable if you train your labradoodle or goldendoodle well and he/she is basically polite and non-aggressive =) The main thing here was that classes were 3 hours away...and while we still had to drive that distance to take the test..no way was I driving that far weekly!

I'm attaching the Delta two-part evaluation for your perusal below. None of it is terribly hard. For us the hard part that we had to train for and practice LOTS for the weeks leading up to our test was the greeting another person with a dog. And the "leave it" which I thought we'd do fine with ... was our sticking point on the test. I was prepared for them to bring out a stuffed animal or large car or something.

They brought out a 6 inch plastic horse. Rosco lost his self-control entirely...I'm POSITIVE he thought it was a real animal of some sort (skinny squirrel?). We managed, but just barely. Thankfully we're not faced with 6 inch horses "on the job" too often--LOL

[Oliver]

Just wanted to say thank you for posting this-- you answered all of my questions!

[Adina P]

I chose Delta MERELY by physical proximity of testing sites. Delta testing site was 3 hours away...the rest were 5 or more hours away. Either is fine. I would look into what established visit sites each has...do some offer you more options locally for visitation locations?

[20xlhzzaoccks]

I looked into TDI and Delta. I chose Delta for a few reason, one being that there were not any TDI tests close to my area. Also, I liked the fact that Delta registers all types of animals and not just dogs. Something else that influenced my choice was that for the Delta test dogs are allowed to wear a gentle leader, easy walk harness or a martingale with no metal links. For the TDI test I think they only allow dogs to test on a regular collar. Steve had a horrible time with leash walking so I was worried about this part of the test. We ended up testing with a martingale with no metal links and he did great. If you have both options available close by you may want to observe some of the tests before hand to get an idea of what they are like and also to meet the people involved with both groups to see what kinds of therapy work they are doing and what meets your needs. We ended up testing in Juno Beach with a lady named Michelle Rivera, she should be on the Delta Website and she was great. Hope this helps!

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Lori,
I am in So. Fla now too and have a 5 month old. Did you ever get into the Therapy Testing and what did you find in our area. I am in the Jupiter area now but am in North Palm Beach and Stuart Areas a lot as well.
Thanks for any info you are able to share.