You are very kind to share your information with me. I had previously spoken to a representative for the Americans with Disabilities and he warned me that many people confuse therapy dogs with Service Animals. A therapy dog does not need any special certification unless the particular convalescent home or school would require it (and in my case, I didn't want to find out later that they did, so we are just going to get it done). A therapy dog cannot go into restaurants or grocery stores, unlike a service animal (but Kipper CAN come with me to work, since we own the manufacturing business where I work). It is only the service animals who are "prescribed" by a physician or psychiatrist and they are not limited to just dogs--some people have miniature horses, for example! Having been a caregiver to terminally ill and disabled children in the past, this remains an area of interest to me, although I am certainly not experienced in the therapy dog area. I do thank you for your kind encouragement. Kipper and I are looking forward to learning what it takes to help cheer the hearts of those who may otherwise never experience the exhilarating love of a Yorkie!

How nice for you both! I am excited for you. Kipper's course will be a concentrated 4 hour session. At the end, they give a free test and if he passes, he will get the puppy therapy certification that is good until he is one year old. On the Therapy Dogs International, the certifications are good for only one year anyway. It sure costs a lot! I am going to just get Kipper certified once and then just keep going to the same convalescent center so that they don't keep asking to see his certification. I was told that they don't even really need the certification anyway, but I want to make sure Kipper behaves himself and no harm will come to either him or the residents. I once took my pet duckling into a center for traumatic brain injury patients and one of the residents grabbed my dear baby and dropped it. It died the same afternoon and there was nothing that could be done. I want to make sure NO HARM comes to my dear little Kipper! I don't think we can really blame the residents of these places, as they are there for a reason, but we can learn what we can do to protect our dogs as well as those we visit, right?

What I liked about our arrangement is that he can take the test again after a year old to "update" his CGC and make it current. Then we'll try for the TDI testing. Im not thrilled about the expense of that but there is a local therapy group that does group outings, and to do that, we'll have to do TDI. I want to be able to do group stuff as well as individual outings.

The big thing about being TDI certiified, for me, is this: All current TDI Associate Members and their dogs are covered by our Primary Volunteer Liability Insurance policy and Secondary Volunteer Accident Insurance.

Sometimes, that's an in to letting a facility have you come visit. It just makes me feel better.

So are these steps to prepare for therapy dog?

Puppy star program/akc
Cgc program/akc
Tdi
Is that how it goes to be certified? How costly is it through tdi?

We skipped star puppy-by the time he got his shots, our trainer said he knew most of the basic obedience stuff and the class wouldnt be worth our while.

There are quite a few different organizations that you can certify with. I know TDI does NOT allow you to be certified with more than one organization. If you plan on doing group outings with a local contingent, see which organization they certify through. Delta is another one (but we dont have delta testers anywhere near us.) You need to make sure, if you go with TDI, that there is a tester within 4 hours of you.

TDI is $10 for testing (althought I think our local group waives this fee) and $40 for the first year, $30 every year afterwards.