Canine-Assisted Interventions: A Comprehensive Guide to Credentialing Therapy Dog Teams

Covering principles of therapy dog team training, assessment, skills, and ongoing monitoring, Canine-Assisted Interventions provides guidance on the most evidence-based methods for therapy dog team welfare, training, and assessment.

The authors offer a linear approach to understanding all aspects of the screening, assessment, and selection of dog-handler teams by exploring the journey of dog therapy teams from assessment of canines and handlers to the importance of ongoing monitoring, recredentialing, and retirement. In addition to reviewing key findings within the field of human-animal interactions, each chapter emphasizes skills on both the human and dog ends of the leash and makes recommendations for research-informed best practices. To support readers, the book culminates with checklists and training resources to serve as a quick reference for readers.

This book will be of great interest for practitioners, in-service professionals, and researchers in the fields of canine-assisted interventions and counseling.

John-Tyler Binfet, PhD, is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, where he is the director of the Building Academic Retention through K9s program (B.A.R.K.; barkubc.ca).

Elizabeth Kjellstrand Hartwig, PhD, LPC-S, LMFT, RPT-S, is an associate professor in the Professional Counseling Program at Texas State University. She is the founder and director of the Texas State University Animal-Assisted Counseling Academy (aac-academy.clas.txstate.edu).