Training My Cairn For Therapy Help?

Question
Hi,
My Name Is Brittany and Ive A 2 Year Old Cairn Terrier Named Chaz. Recently My Mom Had A Stroke and Ive Been Curious About Getting Chaz Trained As A Therapy Dog, but Im Not Sure How To Go About Doing It or If Its A Good Idea To Have A Cairn As One Since There Naturally Hyper and Forgetfull? Im Not Sure If You Can Give Me Any Sort Of Pointers As To Where To Go For Classes or Something A Long The Lines Of That?


Thank You,
Brittany

Answer

Hi Brittany,

At 2 years old, your dog is at a fine age to begin training to become a therapy dog, provided he is housebroken, and has good manners and basic obedience skills. In addition to the basic obedience training, therapy dogs need special training to pass the AKC Canine Good Citizen Certificate Test (CGC) and Therapy Dog International requirements before entering a therapy dog program. You can read about the CGC program here:

http://www.akc.org/events/cgc

There is a link at the above site to locate training and testing classes. You could also contact your vet, local boarding kennels, your state's Cairn Terrier Club, the Humane Society, or local obedience classes to see if they know who's doing a therapy dog training program in your area.

You can read more about therapy dog training here:

http://www.therapydogtraining.net

http://www.zoomroomonline.com/therapy-dog-training.html

I hope I've been a help.
Best of luck,

Patti