Therapy dog

Therapy dogs visit the people they help rather than living with them: rest homes, hospital wards, hospices, schools and university exam weeks. They need a calm, people-loving temperament and pass an assessment with their owner, but they are pets on a volunteer visit, not assistance dogs, and they do not share the legal access rights of guide or hearing dogs. Reading programmes, where children practise reading aloud to an uncritical listener, are one of the role's most popular uses.