Pets As Therapy
Earlier this year, we began a series in the magazine featuring the amazing work of Pets As Therapy a national charity founded in 1983, enhancing the health and well-being in the community through visits of trusted volunteers with their behaviourally assessed animals.
Homing in on new volunteer Emma and her dog, Hansie, we’ll follow their journey on becoming PAT volunteers, the people they meet along the way and we’ll also hear from a few other volunteers and their PAT pets.
Anne meeting with Emma & Hansie
Pets As Therapy provide a visiting service in hospitals, hospices, nursing and care homes, special needs schools and a variety of other venues all across the UK.
Their therapeutic visits:
- Enhance lives in our communities by providing companionship and friendship and helps to tackle loneliness.
- Improve the lives of people suffering from debilitating mental and physical health conditions and illnesses such as Autism, Dementia and Stroke by including animal assisted interventions as part of a holistic approach to treatment.
- Improve literacy in children by developing their confidence, interest and enjoyment in reading through our read2dogs scheme.
We’re big fans of Pets As Therapy’s work and hope you enjoy reading about them and Emma & Hansie’s journey.
Check back in on this page regularly for updates on what’s been going on and don’t miss their monthly appearances in the magazine. We’ll keep you posted here about when the next instalment is coming up!
- Meet Emma and Hansie!
- Find out what happened on assessment day for Hansie and Emma
- What happens at a PAT temperament assessment
- Team Work – meet Anne and Cesc
- How did Hansie’s first visit to a hospital go?
- Meet Rolo!
- It’s key to match the dog to the establishment – and the volunteer’s schedules
- Cats can make great PAT animals, too
- Hansie and Emma go on a Christmas tour
- Hansie makes a new friend at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre
- Meet Honey, who did rather well last year at Crufts
- Emma and Hansie visit care home residents at Marston Court
- Meet Yvonne and her shih tzu, Rosy
Subscribe to The People’s Friend and we’ll donate £5 to Pets As Therapy, click here!
