Therapy Dog Prep

Therapy Dog Prep gets you and your dog ready to volunteer together — visiting places like hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and libraries (yes, including helping kids practice reading out loud to a very patient audience). A great therapy dog is calm, friendly, and totally unbothered by being handled by strangers, and that’s exactly what we polish here.

Is Therapy Dog Prep Right for Your Dog?

• Your dog is social, calm, and genuinely loves people
• You’ve been dreaming of volunteering in your community together
• You want to polish public manners: loose-leash walking, settling, ignoring distractions
• You want to confirm your dog’s temperament (and yours!) is ready for real visits

What You’ll Work On

• Manners and obedience under real-world distraction
• Comfort being touched by strangers
• Calm behavior out in public
• The skills certifying organizations look for

Good to Know

Quick but important note: therapy dogs are not service dogs. Service dogs are individually trained to perform tasks for a person with a disability and have public access rights — therapy dogs don’t. This class is about volunteer visiting work, not service dog training.

Solid basic obedience helps a lot here — if your dog is still working through reactivity or fear, Canine Life Skills or a private Evaluation is the better first step. And to be clear: actual certification happens through a therapy dog organization, not through us — we just get you both ready!