Hi There,

I just had to chime in when I read this thread. We currently have two dogs, one a three year old golden retriever is a certified therapy dog through therapy dogs international. The process was pretty easy and involved basically a canine good citizenship and a high level obedience certification. My wife is his certified handler as therapy dogs and handlers need to be paired. She takes him in to do hospice, hospital and children's reading workshops at the schools and he's always a big hit.

Now me, I suffer from severe anxiety so I don't do anything with the therapy dog outside our home but I recently got a new german shepard puppy and over the last 4 months she has been the single largest improvement to my anxiety problems. She's now just over 6 months old and about 60lbs of pure awesome. From the start we had a connection she gravitated to me from her brothers and sisters and we immediately had a connection. She's way more in tune with me than I am at times. She can tell if I'm going to have a panic attack before I do and she will climb up on my lap and just lean against me until it passes. When I start to get too anxious she will come over with a toy to try to get me to refocus my attention. I used to be too anxious to go walking in public but with her I can. She knows if I'm getting apprehensive of a stranger approaching (or whatever it happens to be) and she tucks in closer to my side to give me a little nudge of support. She sleeps on her own bed in our room at night and when I have bad dreams she comes and lies next to me until it passes and then moves back to her own bed. I never met a dog so in-tune with me before. The right dog can be fantastically theraputic. She's now going through obedience (which she really has down pat) and will get her canine good citizenship soon. I never actually looked into having her registered as a service animal but this thread is making me consider it.

One thing I just make sure I do is give her as much love and support as she does me.

-Nj