Therapy Dog refers to a dog trained to provide affection and comfort to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, mental institutions, schools, and stressful situations such as disaster areas.

The concept of a therapy dog is often attributed to Elaine Smith, an American who worked as a registered nurse for a time in England.

Smith noticed how well patients responded to visits by a certain chaplain and his canine companion, a golden retriever.

Upon returning to the United States in 1976, Smith started a program for training dogs to visit institutions.

Over the years health care professionals have noticed the therapeutic effect of animal companionship, such as relieving stress, lowering blood pressure, and raising spirits, and the demand for therapy dogs continues to grow.

In recent years, therapy dogs have been enlisted to help children overcome speech and emotional disorders.

The concept has widened to include other species, specifically therapy cats, therapy rabbits, and therapy birds..

For more information about the topic Therapy dog, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Companion dog — Companion dog usually describes a dog that does not work, providing only companionship as a pet, rather than usefulness by doing specific tasks. Many ...  > read more

Psychiatric service dog — A Psychiatric Service Dog is a dog that helps its handler, who has a mental (psychiatric) disability. Examples of mental disabilities that sometimes ...  > read more

Service dog — A service dog is a type of assistance dog that is specially trained to help people who have disabilities other than visual or hearing impairment. ...  > read more

Hypoallergenic dog breeds — Hypoallergenic dog breeds are those touted as being hypoallergenic; that is, provoking fewer allergic reactions in allergy sufferers. These breeds ...  > read more

Related Stories

Dogs Can Classify Complex Photos In Categories Like Humans Do (November 29, 2007) — Like us, our canine friends are able to form abstract concepts. Scientists have shown for the first time that dogs can classify complex color photographs and place them into categories in the same ...  > read more

Fetch, Fido -- Innovative Pet Therapy Program At Cedars-Sinai Integrates Dogs Into Physical Therapy, Rehab, More (December 17, 1998) — Janie, a volunteer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, pads down the hall to her next stop. She trots into the hospital room, panting, sits down on the floor, and pokes her nose over the edge of the bed. ...  > read more

Dogs May Be Responding To Psychological Seizures, Not Epilepsy Seizures (January 23, 2007) — Reports of dogs that can predict their owners' epilepsy seizures have been anecdotal and not objectively confirmed by doctors and researchers. Some people obtain service dogs trained specifically for ...  > read more

Children Should Not Be Left Unsupervised With Dogs, Say Experts (February 24, 2007) — Children should not be left unsupervised to play with a dog, say experts in this week's British Medical Journal. Their advice is part of a review aimed at doctors who deal with dog ...  > read more

NASA Engineer Helps Train Puppy For Future Leadership Role (April 16, 2007) — One of NASA's newest workers is a top dog ... literally. A golden retriever puppy named Aries goes to work every day at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. as part of the "Leader Dogs for ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Doggy Genes