The Visiting Experience
Training and handling a therapy dog is a wonderful experience. Being able to share a special dog with other people is a tremendous responsibility and a great honor. Working with your dog in partnership, experiencing breakthroughs in a patient's recovery, perhaps visiting a patient and offering comfort in her last days of life — these are irreplaceable experiences. Being a ray of sunshine, a bright spot in someone's day is an incredible feeling. Some patients count the days until the next time they get to visit with your dog.
Facilities and Programs Vary
Some programs will offer group visits in which you will visit one facility together, perhaps splitting up to cover different floors. Other programs may allow you to visit with a large group of patients in a common room.
Inquire about the facility's policies for visits, and see if you can talk to the staff. Ask whether there are patients who aren't able to come out of their rooms whom you could plan to visit. Planning to cover large numbers of patients in one visit is a bad idea. It is far better to plan to cover one small section. Visit with three to five patients on one visit, and let the rest of your team split up and visit as many others as they can. The more volunteers a program has, the easier it is to cover more ground and be able to see more patients in one day. The frequency of visits is often dependent on the volunteers' individual schedules, but many therapy dogs visit facilities every other week, while others visit once a month. The closer the facility is to where you live, the more likely you are to get there. This is especially true if you work a full-time job and plan to visit on your day off or a weekend.
Visiting with patients in a common area is the least desirable type of therapy work. The people who can't come to the common area are often the most depressed and lonely, those who would benefit most from a visit from you and your Golden.
The Handler's Role
Some people may feel entirely comfortable with the dog part of therapy work, but they may be very uncomfortable talking to patients. Maybe you're a shy person at heart, or maybe you just don't know what to talk about. In general it is always good to ask the staff about the person you are visiting. Find out about their likes, interests, hobbies, and family. This will give you fuel for conversation and openers to get the person talking. Most elderly people love to reminisce and they will often talk your ear off about their childhood experiences, their children, or their pets.
When in doubt, talk about your gorgeous dog. You could tell the person all about where you got him, what his favorite things are, his antics as a puppy, and so on. Think about putting together a photo album of your dog, from puppyhood to adulthood. Or how about pictures of all the great places he has been?
