DOES YOUR DOG QUALIFY TO BE A PET THERAPY DOG?

Nancy with Angie as a puppy at 4 months

Nancy, Guest Services Manager of Morris Animal Inn was on a roll. Her beautiful American Eskimo dog, Bianca, was a naturally well-behaved dog. As a volunteer at St. Hubert's, Nancy decided Bianca was the perfect candidate to become a pet therapy dog. Pursuing this goal with vigor, they blew through the pet therapy certification program at St. Hubert's with ease. Once they accomplished their goal, Nancy and Bianca visited nursing homes and hospitals in the area like Morristown Memorial Hospital and Overlook Hospital in Summit. The whole process was extremely rewarding.

Things were going great until her darling Bianca died very suddenly and unexpectedly because of a lesion on her brain. Heartbroken and living in a house that felt empty without Bianca, Nancy and her husband decided the only way to move on, was to bring a new dog into their lives.

Nancy's next pooch, Angie, is the same breed as Bianca, but has a very different personality. Unlike Bianca who was calm, cool and collected, Angie has a penchant for naughtiness. She often gets into every garbage in the house and terrorizes her cat sisters by eating their food before they can. Her playful and social personality leaves her with boundless energy so she is a regular in our daycare program and at our parties. With her good looks, Angie has become a bit of a poster child for Morris Animal Inn, often appearing on flyers for our events and even on the cover of our brochure!

Angie at 1 years old

Nancy wanted to do pet therapy with Angie but she knew it would be harder this time around since Angie was more interested in eating other dog's poop than listening to her. To get her on the right track, Nancy began training Angie as a puppy at Morris K9 Campus in Randolph, NJ with excellent results.

When a few dedicated animal lovers created their own pet therapy organization called Creature Comfort Pet Therapy in January 2012, Nancy took advantage of their first pet therapy certification class and began training Angie. Angie successfully passed the certification program this March! Yay Angie!

What are the Pet Therapy Requirements?

-Your dog must be at least one years-old.
-Your dog must know basic commands like sit, stay, down, and come. Your dog should not bark out of turn or jump.
-Your dog must love to be petted and enjoy being around people.
-Fido should not frighten or startle easily since they will be around strange objects like wheelchairs, moving beds and oxygen tanks.
-Should get along well with other dogs since your dog may pass other therapy dogs in the hallways of the hospital or nursing home.
If your dog has those qualities, he/she is an excellent candidate for becoming a therapy dog! Find which organization you want to get your dog's pet therapy certification from and receive an evaluation from them. If the answer is yes, than you are on your way to developing your canine into a pet therapy dog!

CONCLUSION OF THE EUKANUBA CHALLENGE

Spring has definitely sprung here in my world!  My friends, the birds have come back and I spend much of my time watching them out the windows as they tweet, swoop around and build their nests.  It makes me a little bit jealous that they can fly and I must use my four little legs to carry my whole body around!  But lately, I feel like a young pup again.  My system is “moving” regularly, I have a little more spring in my step and my coat has improved!  My Mom tells me that it’s from the Euka-something Challenge, but I don’t know what that means.  All is know is that I still love it each morning when I get to eat the delectable food in the pink bag.  Diving into those tasty little nuggets of “yum” each morning revs up my engine and gives me all that I need to start each day!  I plan to recommend it to all of my dog friends at Morris Animal Inn.  Tori, Clover, Jersey, Angie, Gracie, Cannoli, Bailey and Rusty…did you hear that?  If you want to run faster, improve your coat, stay regular and just feel better, ask your Mom or Dad to feed you EUKANUBA!  You’ll thank me later!

We are giving away one voucher for one FREE bag of any Eukanuba Dog Food up to 40lbs to one of our readers that is interested in trying the food.

There are three ways you can qualify:

1) Add a comment to this blog post that tells us why you want to take the Eukanuba 28 Day Challenge and why you should win the voucher

2) Tweet about this blog post and leave the URL to that Tweet in a comment on this post

3) You can blog about this blog post and leave the URL to your post in a comment on this post

You can qualify by one or all three of these methods. We will choose from all comments received and will announce the winner next week!

Check out what other bloggers are saying about their experience with the 28-Day Eukanuba Challenge - http://dogtime.com/eukanuba-28-day-challenge-bloggers.html

THE NEXT FARAH FAWCETT?

I have always considered my coat to be my shining glory.  Its color is very unusual; not quite snowy white but creamy, in a rich vanilla ice cream sort of way.  And, oh, is it ever full!  Some would call me ten pounds of dog with twenty pounds of hair!  Because of all this hair of mine, I have sported many different hairstyles throughout the years.  I was in my lion cut phase when I was younger.  What was I thinking?!  Looking back, that was not a very good look for me, but at the time, oh, how stylish and trendy I thought I was!  A lion cut is where the nice groomer trims your whole back end very short (yes, the whole back end!) and your front end is left wild and full.  If you still can’t picture it, imagine a mullet in your mind, then reverse it.  Anyone who has accidentally worn shorts in the winter knows what that feels like!  Quite chilly when the wind blows! 

And then there was my “short all over” phase which my mom liked a whole lot because then she didn’t need to brush me very often.  Oh, except for my tail; I always like to keep that full and fluffy like a paintbrush.  It’s how you could still tell that I’m a lady. (And don't you forget it!)

And then we come to the present; a time when maturity tells me that I must not let fashion dictate my style, but should do what comes naturally and feels good.  Sometimes I just let it all hang out; wild and crazy, with my hair in my eyes, but who cares?!  I don’t really mind if a few hairs are askew and lately, I’m not sure, but I feel as if there is a whole lot more of them.  My coat all over is more lush than usual and my mom loves when she can sink her fingers deeply into it to pet me.  The hair on my head is just a whole other story.  Can you say troll on steroids?!  It’s creamy and fuzzy and shoots out in all directions.  Where did all of this new hair come from?  I’ve been eating the yummy new food in the pink bag every day.  Could that be the reason for my rich and luxurious coat? I guess we will keep watching to see! Stay tuned for next week's conslusion of my 28-Day Eukanuba Challenge!