Therapy Animals

Everyone knows the therapeutic benefits that animals can have on you.

Stroking a dog, cat or any animal relaxes you, lowering your blood pressure.

I talk to my dog a lot and it helps. She “listens” to me, is someone to cry on and curl up with when I’m feeling bad physically or emotionally. You can read about my own therapy dog here 

The benefits of owning a pet or just spending time with one is well known, which is why many organisations focus on this.

Pets as Therapy provides therapeutic visits to hospitals, hospices, nursing and care homes, special need schools and a variety of other venues across the UK.

Dogs for Good train and support community dogs and their specialist handlers to work in activity and therapy in communities and school.

Assistance Dogs UK is a voluntary coalition of eight assistance charities that aim to promote the freedom, independence and rights of people with assistance dogs across the UK.

Canine Partners provide practical day to day assistance for people with physical disabilities with tasks that may be difficult to perform. They also provide increased confidence, independence and social interaction.

Dog A.I.D provides owners the skills and knowledge to train their pet dog to assist them with daily tasks tailoring their ability to their needs.

Dogs for Good support adults and children with a range of disabilities/

Guide Dogs are for adults and young people who are blind or partially sighted.

Hearing Dogs for Deaf People train dogs to alert deaf people to sounds they would otherwise miss bringing about independence and confidence.

Medical Detection Dogs train specialist dogs to detect the odour of human disease such as different types of cancer and alerting them to medical events such as Diabetes and Addison’s attacks.

Support Dogs is dedicated to increasing independence and quality of life for people with various medical conditions.

The Seeing Dogs Alliance trains dog to guide blind and partially sighted people.

These organisations are by no means the only ones out there to help people with disabilities and medical conditions and I am a firm believer that anything to help people retain their independence is good thing.

Assistance dogs can help with everything and anything. Everyone knows about Guide Dogs helping visually impaired people but nowadays dogs can be trained to open and close doors, load and unload washing machines, get you a tissue and lots more beside.

As my ataxia gets worse my biggest fear has been losing my independence and if I hadn’t fallen in love with Minnie I’d have got a dog I could train to assist me.