Therapy with Dogs - making friends & creating smiles with pets

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Assisteo Hospice's Volunteer Program, where we make friends and create smiles.

Do you have a certified pet therapy dog and enjoy spending time with the elderly? Has your 'therapy animal’ been certified through a nationally recognized pet therapy certification program? Or are you interested in seeing if you and your pet would qualify as a therapy animal team (it's not that difficult)?

Note: A therapy dog provides socialization, encouragement and joy during short, organized group visits. This is very different from being an emotional support dog or service dog, which are long-term, person specific assigned animals.

What do our Pet Therapy teams do?

Assisteo's Pet therapy teams typically visit our patients 1-2 hours per month, for about an hour. Often visits are to skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities (group homes). Pet Therapy dogs have a unique way of changing the atmosphere in a room, putting smiles on faces and bring immense joy to our patients and staff.

What qualifies an animal for Pet Therapy?
The most common dog therapy breeds the Labrador and Golden Retriever due to temperament. However, a dog that is calm, friendly, enjoys being around people and non-aggressive around other dogs/animals, could make for a great therapy animal as well.

Pet Therapy teams (pet & handler) are required to be evaluated, and certified through a national pet therapy organization, like Pet Partners or Pet Therapy Dogs International. Insurance and vaccinations are also required for the animals.

NOTE: Pet Partners provides the needed insurance as part of their certification dues, which costs about $200 for handler onboarding/training, team evaluation and first two years of registration (including insurance).

Many of our dearly loved hospice patients would benefit from visits from you and your furry friend. Studies have shown that spending time with animals can

• Lower blood pressure
• Help people feel emotionally safe
• Increase happiness and joy
• Decrease depression & anxiety
• Provide comfort

If this is of interest to you, joining our Pet Therapy Team could be for you. Pet Therapy Teams provide much needed emotional and practical support to meet the non-medical needs of patients and their families - friendship, support, encouragement, socialization, and companionship... making friends and creating smiles, as we like to say.

You as the handler would also receive hospice patient volunteer training to help make the most of your visits. Not only do our patient care volunteers make a tremendous difference in the lives of our patients, but our volunteers receive so much as well from the time spent with their patients.

One thing that is special about Assisteo Hospice is that we are a Veteran preferred hospice. Over half of our patients are U.S. Military Veterans.

Our main admin office is in Phoenix, but we provide patient care for most of Maricopa County.

If this sounds of interest to you, I'd like to work out a day/time to connect on the phone to start. I can answer questions, share more details, talk about our on-boarding process, etc.

Thank you for considering being a part of the Assisteo Hospice team.

Brian Hetzer
Volunteer Coordinator
Assisteo Hospice

(480) 544-2128 - cell
bhetzer@assisteohospice.com