By admin 
You may be familiar with service dogs and emotional support animals, but what about therapy dogs? These are the canine companions that you’ll usually see roaming funeral homes, nursing homes, and schools and other places where emotional support is necessary. While they may seem like emotional support animals or service dogs at first glance, therapy dogs are in a class of their own.
These dogs are trained to help a group of people, so they may go from person to person to provide support. Among the many types of therapy dogs, you have the deep pressure therapy dog, which is trained to lay their body on someone to help them calm down.
What Is a Therapy Dog?
A therapy dog is a dog that’s trained to help a group of people. Emotional support animals and service dogs are both there to help one single person, which is where a therapy dog differs.
A therapy dog is somewhere in the middle when it comes to the training that they require. While service dogs are trained to help with specific tasks, emotional support animals don’t require any training, and therapy dogs fall right in the middle, with a moderate amount of training being necessary.
This is because therapy dogs need to be well-behaved, socialized, and receptive to someone’s emotions. In fact, most organizations won’t recognize a therapy dog who has yet to be around a group of people or in a specific space if they don’t have specific training. For instance, a therapy dog who has never been socialized with children will not be allowed to visit a children’s hospital.
For these reasons, therapy dogs are their own unique category of support animal.
What Is a Deep Pressure Therapy Dog?
So, what is a deep pressure therapy dog? In short, a deep pressure therapy dog is a dog that’s trained to offer support to a group of people. While there are many types of therapy dogs, a deep pressure therapy dog is trained to assist someone through deep pressure therapy (DPT). In fact, you’ll find that DPT dogs are among the most common therapy dogs you’ll come across.
That said, to understand a DPT dog, you need to understand DPT. In short, DPT is a unique type of therapy that involves a dog that applies pressure to help someone calm down. For example, if someone is having a panic attack, a DPT dog will help by leaning on them, lying on their lap, or laying on top of their chest. This resets the person’s nervous system, can help them feel grounded, and can help them recover from a panic attack.
How to Get a Deep Pressure Therapy Dog
If you want to get a deep pressure therapy dog, there are a few things you need to take care of. First and foremost, you need to adopt or purchase a dog breed that’s suitable for therapy dog work. Thankfully, most larger dog breeds are suitable if they can be trained to provide deep pressure therapy.
From there, you can follow the steps below.
- Wait for your therapy dog to get comfortable once you bring them home with you.
- Socialize your therapy dog around people and animals to prevent behavioral problems.
- Train your therapy dog to assist with deep pressure therapy.
- Test your therapy dog. Make sure they can sit, stay, and come to someone’s aid when necessary.
- Register your deep pressure therapy dog with a reputable organization.
At the end of the day, if your therapy dog can pass a CGC test, you should have no problem registering them. Still, we only briefly summarized the process here, but there are plenty of resources that will help you adopt, train, and register a deep pressure therapy dog.
Understanding the Deep Pressure Therapy Dog
The deep pressure therapy dog is one of the best support animals that you can have in a group setting. Whether it’s a nursing home, hospital, or school, a DPT dog can assist a large group of people and help people manage their emotions in times of crisis.
While these dogs may seem similar to service animals and emotional support animals, and sometimes their roles are similar, therapy dogs are their own unique class of support animal and should be treated as such.