Toby the Pet Therapy Dog

Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) has helped many people .... in hospitals, in schools, group homes, Seniors facilities, to name a few. Our dog Toby was an AAT dog with Chimo http://www.chimoproject.ca/chimo/ and Wednesdays were clearly Toby's favorite day of the week. I was so inspired watching Toby engage with patients, and by the change in environment when Toby was on the hospital unit, that I wrote about it in On Toby's Terms, which was my first book. 

Toby The Pet Therapy Dog and His Hospital Friends is a book for children to help them understand how good it feels to help other people, how to be a good friend, and the role that animals play in helping people. 

The other day when talking to a neighbor's child, she said "I really like the part of the book where Toby helps the little boy in the hospital, and I like that Toby is a good friend to Simon."  It was wonderful to hear that the message was hear.




Check out what the Special Needs Book Review had to say about Toby's Books:
http://www.specialneedsbookreview.com/2012/04/25/interview-with-charmaine-hammond-ma/

We would love to hear your animal assisted therapy stories. Is your pet an AAT pet? Maybe you had a therapy dog visit your or a family member in hospital?  We would love to feature you

Want to hear about some other dogs that bring love, connection and help to people?  I was thrilled to interview Steven Latham, the Producer of the new Shelter Me PBS film series on my PAWsitive Radio-all things pets Radio Show. Listen here to learn about how shelter dogs are helping veterans returning from war cope with PTSD, how a women's prison trains dogs to become service dogs, and the many ways that shelter pets are contributing to the lives of people, in fact in some cases, they are saving lives!  There have been almost 30,000 listens to this show (in 2 days).  Let's help spread the word, and help Shelter Me accomplish it's mission.  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/chammond/2012/08/11/guest-steven-latham