What to Expect from a Therapy Dog Session

What to expect from us

• We will provide a Therapy Dog visit on stand-alone basis or on a regular day/time to suit your needs.
• Our session will last 1-1.5 hours where we will introduce Therapy dogs to your residents/patients/children, to allow them to pet/cuddle according to their consent/wishes.
• Canine and Able has full public and products liability insurance as well as employer’s liability insurance for our volunteers. More details can be provided on request.
• Our volunteers and dogs are trained according to our organisational policies and procedures, and the dog handlers will follow the guidelines laid out in our risk assessments to ensure sessions are as safe as possible.
• All volunteers will be PVG checked and will be familiar with our safeguarding policy.
• Volunteers will at all times respect participant confidentiality.
• Volunteers will arrive at your premises 10 minutes before your session starts, to allow time to toilet the dogs in a hygienic way and in an appropriate place.
• Volunteers will abide by the rules and regulations of the establishment being visited, in terms of hygiene, no-go areas, sign-in protocols, and fire safety.
• Dogs will be presented clean and recently well-groomed (to remove dander – the main source of allergy).
• Dog’s claws will be kept short and checked immediately prior to a session for any sharpness.
• Our dog’s general health will be assessed prior to any visitation.
• Our Therapy dogs will be independently assessed by the Assistance Dog Assessment Association to ensure their behaviour and character is appropriate for their role. We do use some dogs that are still in training, and they will be clearly identifiable by wearing a ‘Learner Bandana’. Any dogs still in training will be handled by our experienced dog-trainers.
• On arrival our volunteers will present themselves to the manager/client contact – and will not commence the session with participants without on-the-day consent.
• If we are unable to fulfil our session commitment (e.g. due to sickness/transport issues on the day), we will contact the management of the establishment asap and with as much notice as possible to rearrange.

What we ask of you

• We find that sessions work better when a member of your staff is able to accompany our volunteers and dogs, to introduce us to participants personally. This enables us to have a better understanding of their likes and dislikes, and any medical conditions we need to modify our sessions for. We strongly encourage you to make a member of staff available for us to work with (if working with children a member of your staff is compulsory).
• If a member of staff is not available to accompany our volunteers (adults only) during our session, we ask that you explain fire & safety procedures, and supply door codes upon our arrival – to ensure the safety of our volunteers and dogs.
• Upon our arrival, we ask that you inform us of any potential participants who have dog allergies, do not like dogs, are immunocompromised, or unwell in a way that close contact with a dog would put them at increased risk.
• Upon our arrival, we ask that you inform us of any infective conditions present in the establishment that may put our volunteers at risk (e.g. Covid, Norovirus etc). The decision to continue the session or postpone will be at the volunteer’s discretion.
• To protect our volunteers, we advise them to avoid compromising situations or opportunities for misunderstandings or allegations and do not allow them to enter into one-to-one visits in residential homes/hospitals/schools such as side/private rooms – unless accompanied by another member of Canine and Able, or preferably, a member of staff from the establishment being visited.
• We ask that no other activity is taking place during our visit (e.g. music, quiz, games) as we find this distracts our dogs (and the participants) affecting the quality of our services.
• If for any reason, you need to cancel or postpone our visit, we would appreciate as much notice as possible. We will be happy to work with you to arrange an alternative date/time.
• We LOVE it when you take photos of our visits and tag us on Facebook, this helps us greatly with funding applications – to be able to continue doing what we do.
• If you have any questions about what we do, positive feedback, or complaints, please email us on: info@canineandable.co.uk