Therapy Team Prep Course

Share Your Dog’s Love. Serve Your Community.

You know your dog brings you comfort and joy—now, let us help you share that gift with others.

Our Therapy Team Prep Academy is an elite, advanced training track designed to take your fully trained dog from a family pet to a registered Therapy Dog. Whether you want to volunteer in hospitals and schools or you are a professional looking to integrate your dog into your practice, we provide the final layer of polish, the education, and the testing.

Prerequisites: A Foundation of Excellence

Therapy work demands the highest level of reliability, safety, and control. Because of these rigorous standards, this program is exclusively available to graduates of our Basic Obedience and Advanced Off-Leash training programs.

We build upon the solid foundation of obedience you have already established, shifting the focus from “commands” to “connection” and complex environmental stability.

What You Will Achieve

By the end of this program, you and your dog will be fully prepared to:

  • Register with Pet Partners: The “Gold Standard” for volunteer therapy teams, granting you access to visit hospitals, nursing homes, and reading programs with full liability insurance.

  • Register with AAAIP: The leading organization for professionals (therapists, educators, social workers) who wish to use their dogs in their specific line of work.

  • Earn the AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC): The mark of a well-behaved canine member of society.

The All-Inclusive “Road to Registration”

We have removed the guesswork and hidden costs. Our package includes the advanced training, the handler education, and the testing.

1. 10-Day Specialized Day Train Your dog returns to us for 10 days of specialized exposure training. Since they already know their obedience commands, we focus entirely on the nuances of therapy work, including:

  • Navigating tight spaces around wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches.

  • “Leave It” mastery (ignoring dropped food or medication in a hospital setting).

  • Calm greetings with strangers and clumsy petting.

  • Desensitization to loud noises, alarms, and sudden distractions.

2. The Handler Course (Included) Successful therapy work is 50% dog and 50% handler. We cover the cost and enrollment for the mandatory Pet Partners Online Handler Course ($80 Value), ensuring you understand the protocols and safety measures before you even step into the testing ring.

3. The Evaluations (Included) No need to hunt for a testing site. We host the tests right here.

  • AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) Evaluation

  • Official Pet Partners / AAAIP Team Evaluation

4. The “Until You Pass” Safety Net We want you to succeed. If test day nerves get the best of you, our program includes a comprehensive Mock Evaluation to ensure you are ready, plus two complimentary official Re-Evaluation if needed within 1 year of graduation.

    The tuition for this program is $1999 for the 10-Day program (after your dog has completed our basic and advanced off-leash obedience training programs), or $4299 for the entire 30-Day curriculum.