Cody & Dana: Pet therapy standards

A busy speech therapist and a supervised visitation monitor for the Superior Court in her area of San Diego County, Robin Kaufman still manages to devote a lot of time to pet therapy.

Robin began her pet therapy career with Cody, a rescued standard poodle, when a friend's therapy dog developed cancer and was too tired after chemo treatments to keep up with visits. While I enjoyed it from the beginning and Cody was a natural, I soon realized that I needed to have Cody certified in order to have liability insurance and to have the support of an organization behind me.

After investigating pet therapy groups, Robin applied to Love on a Leash (LOAL), a national organization that was founded in the San Diego area. Because Cody was already well trained in obedience and had completed more than enough visits to meet the supervised visitation requirements, Robin had Cody take the test required by LOAL. He passed quite easily and became certified.

Today, Robin, who is also very active in standard poodle rescue, has four standard poodles, all rescues A second one of her poodles, Dana, has become certified and joined Cody in therapy visits. Since college all my dogs have been rescues, Robin said, and, in fact, there are a number of rescued animals in our LOAL chapter. Just because an animal is a rescue and may not have gotten the best start in life, does not automatically mean they can not be trained as a therapy pet. In fact, many times rescued animals make wonderfully successful therapy pets.

Because San Diego County covers a wide area, it has four LOAL chapters. Robin is in her sixth year as president of her local chapter, an active group doing both individual and group visits to senior facilities, schools, libraries, senior daycare programs, hospitals, and hospice. They will even do a home visit for someone who is an at-home hospice patient.

When they do a school visit, the members do a presentation about dogs covering such topics as How to Approach a Dog and What to do if a dog seems unfriendly. For those children who do not have a dog at home, the program serves as a valuable introduction to dogs.

Several of the area libraries have reading programs to help children develop an enjoyment for reading and to practice and improve their reading skills. In these reading programs, a child reads to one of the visiting dogs. Robin is particularly fond of the library visits. I love seeing the kids reading to the dogs and always taking time to show the dogs any pictures that go with the story. She was reminded of a humorous incident during one such visit when one little girl, working very hard at reading to Dana and making sure the poodle was involved, actually ended up holding the book upside down so Dana could "see". Yet, she still managed to read the story. Dana, meanwhile, enjoying the story in her own way, had dozed off. I didn't want the girl to think she was boring Dana, said Robin, so I placed my hand under Dana's head to hold it up. Well, holding up a big dog's head is not that easy, and I must say my hand was glad when she came to the end of the story.

Robin's chapter of LOAL has some rules beyond the national's requirements. For instance, every dog in the chapter must have earned a Canine Good Citizen (CGC) designation before they can go on unsupervised therapy visits. In addition, when visiting seniors or hospice patients, members are told not to say: See you next week as there may not be a next week. Similarly, members are discouraged from wishing elderly folks Happy Mother's Day or Happy Father's Day as sometimes families do not visit and being reminded, even innocently, can cause great sadness. Instead visits are kept upbeat with lots of laughter and smiles

Robin advises anyone thinking of getting into pet therapy, not to be put off by the seemingly big time commitment. While she, herself, has a busy schedule of visits, some with a less flexible work schedule visit less often. But that doesn't make their visits any less valuable, said Robin. Even one visit a month is meaningful, and it is so well worth it. I always come away from a visit with a smile on my face.

Contact Robin, Cody, and Dana: Poodles
Meet Lee's therapy dog: Frosty
Help a child understand senior facilities: Nurse Frosty
Read Lee's other pet therapy stories: Pet Therapy Profiles

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