The first occurrence of therapy dog training was during World War II when Corporal William Wynne came in the possession of a Yorkshire terrier which was left alone on the battlefield. The dog was named smoky.
It was this very dog that helped the Corporal William Wynne to carry out many combat operations, acted as an encouragement to the troops, provided mirth and moral boost to the troops and on one special occasion, helped the signal corps to place a telegraph cable through an underground pipe saving many men from a lengthy, perilous construction work that would have claimed the lives of many.
The first official therapy of Smoky’s was when the Corporal was hospitalized due to a disease fond in the jungles where smoky was brought to visit the Corporal in his hospital ward and smoky helped to cheer the other patients up as well.
This was the first occurrence of therapy dogs in history. The therapy dog training scheme was later devised by Elaine Smith who noticed the patients’ improvements when they were visited by a chaplain and his dog which was a golden retriever.
This later sparked Smith’s therapy dog training where dogs were trained to visit medical institutions to help the patients’ with their recovery.
Since the time of Elaine Smith, therapy dog training kept on becoming more and more important as people started realizing that animal companionship can influence the patients’ recovery splendidly with effects such as stress relieving, improving the mental condition of the patients and even helping to lower their blood pressure.
With the rise in demand of therapy dogs, they have been employed in much more than just hospitals as they were found to be very useful in several other fields as well like providing companionship to senior citizen in their old homes, providing young children the companionship and comfort that they need to overcome their emotional disorders and even helping them with speech improvement.
Nancy Stanley and Therapy Dog Training
The concept of therapy dog training was expanded by Nancy Stanley who founded the Tender Loving Zoo, which is a nonprofit able organization which helps severely handicapped children to overcome their need for companionship by placing them in contact with therapy dogs and other therapy animals.
These examples kept on expanding and now therapy dogs are employed in a lot of medical institutions to help keep the patients happy, in a lot of schools to cheer the students up and in many other places. The role of the therapy dog training is to make man’s best friend become even more loving and caring than it has ever been before.
Sweet Puppy 