Social Work with Dog?

[Silvia Römer]

Hello,

actually I study social work. I'm interested in social work with dogs, and search for people who have some experience with this. Can you tell me anything about this work?

What do I have to consider?

Which characteristics from the dog are important?

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I believe there are a couple of members here that do use their doodles in their line of Social Work so hopefully they will see this.  I would think though that it would be the same type of things that are needed for Therapy Work as a volunteer.  Those would be the dog would need to enjoy people, both adults and children.  Would need to be well trained in obedience and well socialized to all types of environments and noises.  The one issue that we run into here in the US when doing what we call Therapy Work in the performance of our professions rather than as a volunteer is that the Therapy Dog organizations that test and register therapy dogs will not provide insurance to us if we are working professionally.