Nepean Therapy Dogs Inc.

Is a registered charity providing trained therapy visitation dog teams to members of the community in schools, hospitals, aged-care, universities and community groups. Our therapy dog visitation teams (dog and handler) are specially trained to help people in the community overcome and cope with stressful events. Nepean Therapy Dogs Inc. dogs do not jump, bark or show any forms of aggression. Our human volunteers work in selected fields which they specialise in. To maintain a high standard, our therapy dog handlers provide services through Nepean Therapy Dogs Inc. and only at sites approved by Nepean Therapy Dogs Inc. Nepean Therapy Dogs Inc. has public liability insurance for all visits.

Volunteers Need!

We are in urgent need for:

Office volunteers - activities include filing, documenting, emails, working with community leaders.

Therapy dog handler with dog - Working with your dog in the field.

Therapy dog handler without dog - working to support a therapy dog team

Unable to volunteer but still want to help? Have you considered donating?

Nepean Therapy Inc. Programs and services

Schools

These services can range from reading programs, training, and play therapy

University Visits

University visits focus on destressing, talking about life and explaining therapy dog programs. We encourage students to be engaged with the community

Aged Care

Teams of 2 - 4 volunteers visiting focused on social engagement

Corporate Events

Something different for the office. Yes, it makes people happy and talking about the event. The best thing is the cost of this service allows us to provide free community services

Hospitals

We do several Western Sydney and Blue Mountains hospitals (mainly on Mondays and Tuesdays)

Palliative Care

We have specially trained volunteers, who know how to be supportive and will help to create positive memories (out of a tragic event)

Courts

Our court program service is designed to keep the individual calm and aide in preventing emotional outburst (crying etc.)

How therapy dogs work

Therapy visitation dogs exist because people in western society have been taught that humans will let us down, but dogs or other animals will always be there for us. There is extensive empirical evidence to support this claim in children’s books, movies and TV shows, including Lassie, Old Yeller, Clifford, Rin Tin and Where the Redfern Grows (just to name a few). Growing up in this type of environment nurtures the belief that we (each individual) has a special affinity to dogs (or other animals). That is to say, we believe that we have a special bond with dogs that no one else has.

Briefly About our Therapy Dogs

Nepean Therapy Dogs supports this belief (that we have a special bond to dogs) to help people overcome emotional and mental barriers, challenges and setbacks. This is achieved by providing trained, affectionate, well-behaved dogs and handlers. Our dogs interact with the individual (client), tapping into their empirical beliefs (mentioned above). Our dogs are also specially trained not to over-react to people’s emotions, not to bark or make noises and not to jump on people. Then the handlers are trained in controlling a safe environment for dog and client, to provide supportive feedback to the client(s), to raise people’s emotions and to provide guidance as needed.