Caring Canines Program

Our Caring Canines mission is to enrich the lives of area residents by enhancing their emotional, physical and social well-being with the unconditional love of therapy dogs. The human-animal bond has been proven to enhance human health and well being. We believe the human-animal bond is a mutually beneficial relationship that that improves the physical, social and emotional lives of those who participate.

Therapy dogs bring comfort, happiness to people of all ages, including seniors, students, veteran and patients in recovery. Our teams are motivated by connection, compassion and a commitment to sharing a meaningful bond with everyone who can benefit from time spent with an animal.

Why Choose Us?

We provide essential training for the human end of the leash!  Continuing education classes are provided and ultimately certification for therapy dog teams.  Caring Canines provides training, certification, support, and insurance for our members!

We develop and train teams of dogs and their owners for the purpose of therapeutic visitations to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, and any situation where children or adults would benefit emotionally and physically from visiting teams. 

Handlers whose dogs pass the their Canine Good Citizen (CGC) tests will then go on to pass the Caring Canines team certification.They will then be certified as a Caring Canine team. We offer continuing education and training by offering additional classes to hone and perfect skills to create and facilitate the optimal visiting experience for all.

All methods used for training are non-aversive, motivational, and humane. Dogs in training will never experience stress.

You and your dog will learn:

• How to place head and feet for greeting
• How to negotiate around equipment like wheelchairs and walkers
• Retrieving to deliver cards and flowers
• How to greet people who spend most of their time in a bed
• How to lay under a table while people are eating and drinking
• To dance a little
• To walk through a milling crowd
• Some tricks for entertainment
• A lot more!

Special handler classes are offered to prepare handler’s for visiting the various facilities that we visit!

More information about the required training for this program can be found on the training page here.  The required application for the Caring Canines Therapy Dog Program can be found here.