Maybe I could combine my love of animals with my passion for helping speech therapy clients. The only question was, “How?”

I started down the rabbit-hole trying to find every resource I could about animal-assisted speech therapy and found...not much!

So five years later and having partnered with three very different therapy dogs, I compiled all I learned so other speech therapists and related professionals won’t have to start from scratch like I did.

I filled this manual with stories from actual therapy sessions to illustrate the power of the human-animal bond alongside practical application tips. Throughout I tried to keep the therapy dog’s welfare forefront to keep all parties feeing safe and joyful.

Included are:

• step-by-step help for deciding if your companion is a therapy dog candidate and how to get started

• essential components of safe and effective animal-assisted interventions

• considerations for liability, multicultural inclusion, and practice management when partnering with a therapy dog

• more than 50 activities for addressing common speech, language, literacy, and oral-motor goals

• an appendix of dog-themed therapy materials,

• and a list of helpful resources and organizations