About
Our Dogs and Us
All dogs are temperament tested before being accepted into the program. Our standards are strict in order to preserve our excellent reputation. The dogs must be calm and confident in a crowded, institutional setting. During the test, we attempt to simulate situations which are likely to arise in a nursing home or hospital environment. Successful dogs and their handlers attend an orientation session before accompanying an experienced volunteer for their initial visit to their assigned facility where they are assessed on their ability to provide safe, therapeutic care.
Our mandate is to bring unconditional love of our dogs to our clients in long-term care, hospital, retirement residences and in VON Day Centres.
A therapy dog visits people in nursing home and hospitals to bring a little love into their daily routine. Therapy dogs are calm, obedient, loving family pets whose owners wish to share their dogs with members of the community who could benefit from a dog's unconditional love and acceptance.
In order to be a therapy dog, your dog must be evaluated to determine his suitability for the program. The evaluation assesses his reactions to sudden noises, other dogs, wheelchairs, elevators and such, as well as his basic training and temperament.
Once a dog passes his evaluation, he and his handler first visit with an experienced team before they are given their own assignment. Since our therapy dogs visits are so eagerly anticipated by our clients, our volunteers must commit to weekly scheduled visits.
Often our clients become friends, making the experience even more rewarding for our teams. If you think you may be interested in joining our group, please visit our Get Involved page more information. We are always looking for new recruits!
Visitors must have 10 visits to complete qualification as a therapy dog. They would then receive a vest, leash and tag.
A therapy dog needs to be calm and confident. They must not be nervous or boisterous. Not all dogs are cut out to be therapy dogs and it may be that your dog will not pass the test or may not handle the stress of visiting. No matter, they are still your best friend and companion.
Our dogs are not service dogs. Service dogs are trained for a specific task such as seeing eye dogs, hearing ear dogs, drug detection dogs working for Customs at the border, etc. These dogs are trained by specialists and then assigned to the person who needs them. Service jobs must focus on their owner and their job when they are working. They usually wear vests that say, “Please don’t pet me, I’m working.” as any distraction while they are at work could be potentially dangerous to their owner. Vital partners to their owners, they are legally allowed to go anywhere their owner goes.
Therapy Dogs such as those with East Central Therapy Dogs are our family pets and we encourage people to pet them. They are well trained and well behaved, and have passed a rigorous test conducted by our organization that tests the owner and dog together. Our therapy dogs however are not allowed the same access as service dogs, for example, they are not allowed on airplanes, in restaurants, hotels, etc. Unfortunately some unscrupulous entrepreneurs found a new and easy way to make money by selling bogus therapy dog and service dog vests and other equipment onling to people who are willing to lie about their dogs qualifications in order to take them everywhere with them. This constitues fraud and police are investigating these fake therapy and service dogs and laying charges. These dogs have not been trained or evaluated and pose a potential danger to other dogs and the public.