Animals can, and do, play a significant role in our lives. There are probably not many people whose lives, at one time, were not touched by an animal.

1. What is a therapy (team)?
   Therapy "teams" are regular people who own and love their animals and want to share them and their rime with other. Therapy (teams) come in all shapes and sizes. Dogs, Cats, Horses, Rabbits, Guinea Pigs, Goats, LLAMAS, Donkeys, Pot Bellied Pigs, Cockatoos, African Gray Parrots, or Chickens. Animals with real personalities and real love to share. Some have pedigrees that stretch into the next week and some have been adopted or rescued.
   
   
2. What do therapy teams do?
   The primary objective of a therapy Animal and its handler is to provide comfort and companionship by sharing the animal with disabled, handicapped, and terminally ill. This is done in such a way that increases emotional well being, promotes healing and improves the quality of life for the people being visited AND the staff that serves them.
   
   They bring sparkle to a sterile day, provide a lively subject for conversation, and rekindle old memories of previously owned pets. The volunteers in the program and the animals who visit with those in care facilities do make a difference in the quality of life. Real therapy is provided between animals and people. They bring love and hope and smiles.
   
   
3. How can you become involved with using pets in therapy settings?
   If your animal can act politely in public, has the social skills to seek out and visit with strangers, and if the two of you have the teamwork to do this together, then you have the potential to be a therapy "team". Therapy animals are healthy, temperament tested, people oriented, friendly animals who are well socialized in many situations.
   
   
4. What sort of facilities do therapy animals visit?
   The most familiar to most is probably the nursing home or perhaps a school, but there are many others. Therapy animal teams are working in prisons, courts, juvenile detention centers, psychiatric facilities, hospitals, burn centers, shelters. They work with at risk kids, hospice, aids centers, in private practice, and with disaster teams. Probably anything that comes to mind as long as the team is educated in that area. All of which must be approved by the facility's staff prior to visiting.
   
   
5. What is certification?
   Certification is a statement by an organization that an animal/handler team has passed its (the organization's) criteria. THER IS NO SUCH THING AS A CERTIFICATION FOR AN ANIMAL! It is the "TEAM" that is certified. Thus the animals I am working with now is certified as one half of my "team". If, for instance, my daughter, mother took my animal into a facility, she would not be certified.
   
   
6. What are the advantages of certification?
   One of the obvious ones is the insurance coverage. Nationally recognized certifying organizations provide a one million dollar primary liability insurance policy for their certified volunteers while they are "working". Certification with a nationally recognized organization will also provide you with credibility and allow you the potential to work in hospitals, burn centers, cancer wards, etc. where the facility protocol is apt to be very strict. Risk management issues have already been addressed by the certifying organizations so by becoming certified with your animal, those issues should not come up.
   
   An Example:
   In order to become Delta Certified, an animal much have a clean bill of health, be up to date on all immunizations and be on a parasite-control program. Strict procedures must be followed before each visit. Dogs for example, must be bathed. Llamas must be bathed, their nails clipped and washed and their ears and mouth cleaned. Once inside animals are kept on a leash, lead at all times (in case of rabbits, birds, they have their own containment policies.) A handler cannot bring more than one animal at a time. The team is only allowed near patients who have been selected to receive visits. IN addition, stringent hand washing practices are part of the standard procedures.
   
   Pre-registration screening also assesses an animal's skill and aptitude for healthcare and school settings. It is simply not enough that an animal be a good-natured family pet. As part of their evaluation, animals are exposed to crowds of people all pushing to touch them at once. They are petted with closed or ridged hands, and exposed to the stress of people yelling and dropping things near them. They are also exposed to many smells that are common in nursing home settings. Dogs, in particular are pumped into, tripped over, and have their ears, tails and fur pulled as a child might do. A llama must be able to be comfortable and then handler must have the awareness of the situation to be able to react at a moments notice. Such rigorous screening not only helps protect others, it helps protect animals by screening out those who may be uncomfortable or frightened in stressful situations.
   
   
7. What should a facility expect from a Certified, trained Therapy animal volunteer?
   A clean, healthy, well-groomed, team of animal and handler. The certification process varies from organization to organization; all however, include an evaluation of the animals (an handlers) behavior in a variety of situations and under common "stressors". They also include health and vaccinations proofs and annual physical exams. That facility will have a partner in the health care matrix. A bridge between patient, family, and health care provider.
   
   They should be able to expect discretion, inspiration and love. Confidentiality and ethics issues are also stressed during the training process.
   
   As a Certified Registered Therapy Animal Team, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you are helping people in need in your own community.