A very important aspect of finding places to volunteer your time with your pup is really considering what kind of environment your dog is going to thrive in. If your dog is a little bit nervous around children, you’ll want to avoid visiting schools or daycares. If your pup doesn’t like the sound of the microwave beeping, the chimes and alarms in nursing homes and hospitals may not make those places a good fit. There is so much more to be said about this, and I plan to write an additional article about this for Therapy Dog Life in the near future and will link it when I do!
Once you’ve figured out the best kind of environment for your dog to share smiles and joy, jump onto Google and find those kinds of places near you! Use your best judgement to poke around their websites and find the correct contact — of course if you reach out to the wrong person, most times someone will point you in the right direction. A lot of times when we first started, I would make a phone call asking for the contact information of whomever would be in charge of therapy dog visits.
Many nursing homes have Activity Directors who handle therapy dog visits, and the requirements to visit are minimal — usually just simple things like proof of certification and insurance, along with vaccination records (for your pup and yourself, thanks to Covid!). Some places, such as hospitals, hospice companies, and cancer centers, will often have Volunteer Coordinators guiding you to get started to become a volunteer with the facility — this can often include onboarding tasks such as additional background checks, vaccines or health testing (i.e. TB tests), and online or in person training courses. Not every place you visit will require a lot of footwork to get in the door, but the ones who do are generally very worthwhile even though it can be a bit overwhelming at first.
Schools, libraries, and daycares typically have a pretty low barrier-to-entry; it’s just about finding the right contact who can grant permission and get you scheduled for a visit. Here are a couple of simple email templates as starting poitns for you to alter to suit your needs. I would send emails like this to ten facilities a day when we first started — cast a big net and you’ll come up with some great options!
