About The Good Dog Foundation
The Good Dog Foundation (Good Dog) was founded as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in 1998 to promote the use of animal-assisted therapy. Good Dog’s mission is to elevate the stature and promote society’s understanding of the therapeutic value of the human-animal bond. This is accomplished through the use of professionally-trained and supervised volunteer teams who work to aid the healing process in humans and enhance clients’ quality of life. To learn about The Good Dog Difference, click here.
Good Dog provides therapy dog services to people in health care, social service, educational and community facilities in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and at disaster sites around the country. Its highly-trained and fully-certified volunteer teams each consist of a human handler and therapy dog. Good Dog focuses on work in the four divisions of Education, Health Care and Wellness, Research, and Disaster Response. For more on the work of these divisions, click here.
Good Dog’s ultimate goal is to increase the awareness and prevalence of fully-certified therapy teams in a wide variety of facilities across the country. This is achieved through three core activities: training and certification, visit coordination, and research and awareness.
Training and Certification
Good Dog is unique in that it does not just register therapy dog teams after a one-time evaluation. Instead, we hold our human handlers and dogs to the highest standards in the field. Teams must complete two levels of training to become certified Good Dog teams. The eleven weeks of training in Therapy I and II classes that teams undergo for certification allow the Good Dog trainers to evaluate teams in a variety of settings throughout the training.
Because of the substantial time that Good Dog spends training both handlers and dogs, Good Dog stands behind every volunteer team it certifies. This Good Dog Guarantee means that teams have complete Good Dog backing and support when visiting institutions; it also gives facilities full confidence that only highly-qualified and certified Good Dog teams will visit their facilities. Because Good Dog believes in its teams, it provides insurance to all certified teams while they are on official facility visits.
Dogs and their handlers must undergo annual assessments regarding their fitness for therapy dog service and must meet stringent criteria to re-certify as Good Dog teams. This allows Good Dog to ensure that only teams of the highest-quality continue to visit facilities as Good Dogs. Currently, Good Dog works with over 1,000 therapy dog teams and employs nine trainers to meet the increasing demand to train therapy dog teams. To find out more about becoming a volunteer, click here.
Visit Coordination
Good Dog works with hundreds of facilities to place its volunteer teams in facilities that cater to teams’ strengths and abilities. Good Dog staff coordinate therapy dog services with these partner sites. Trainers always accompany new therapy teams to their first visits, and are present at a majority of facility visits.
Good Dog maintains ongoing contact with professionals at each facility to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness and safety of Good Dog visits through facility agreements. Because of the impeccable reputation of Good Dog teams and Good Dog’s coordination with facilities, volunteer teams are able to gain access to many facilities that they could not access as independent teams. Currently, Good Dog visits patients and clients in over 290 facilities.
Research and Awareness
Good Dog advances research about the human-animal bond and promotes public awareness about therapy dog services through presentations, events and media outlets. Good Dog has partnered with Pfizer and the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City to conduct research on the clinical benefits of therapy dog service as an element in the treatment of cancer patients.
For more infomation
The Good Dog Foundation
PO Box 1484
New York, NY 10276
Toll-Free: (888) 859-9992
Fax: (888) 861-7312
info@thegooddogfoundation.org
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