Blessi Passes Pet Therapy Test

Blessi and I passed Pet Partner Certification. I am so proud of this horse!!! In case you aren't familiar with the organization, Pet Partners "is the nation’s largest and most prestigious nonprofit registering handlers of multiple species as volunteer teams providing Animal-Assisted Interactions. With the highest caliber curriculum in the industry, Pet Partners trains volunteers and evaluates them with their pets for visiting animal programs in hospitals, nursing homes, veterans’ centers, hospice, Alzheimer’s facilities, courtrooms, schools and other settings."

I had to take 8 hours of computer-based training on how to be a pet handler plus pass a test. Blessi had to get a health certification. Then we had the team evaluation today.

This is a rigorous program. Both the handler and
the animal are scored separately. All exercises need to be conducted on a loose lead line. As handler, I need to be proactive, read Blessi's cues, and intercede if somebody needs coaching on how to interact with a horse.

Per photo 1 (the 5 additional volunteers aren't in camera range), the evaluation occurred at the Fleet Reserve Association Branch. As far as Blessi was concerned, he was thrilled to finally get to enter a "house." He was particularly interested in "kitchen" but he didn't have an opportunity to explore that area of enticing food scents.

Pet Partners offers certification for the team at two different levels--simple and complex environments. We are certified for simple environments, complex with full time organizational escort. Photo 2 shows us at the end of Exercise 5, Out for a Walk. Blessi scored a 1 (he needed a 2 for complex). Why you may ask did Blessi only get a 1 when he is so obviously walking on a loose lead line? Ha! Ha! Take a look at the mussed up rug in the back ground. As we were walking by, Blessi decided to roll it up. When I suggested that he not play with the rug, he started to rip the masking tape off the rug. Blessi had the room laughing so hard.

In Photo 3, Blessi is doing his back up 6 feet. What you don't see are his attempts to move chairs with his mouth to make the back up easier.

Blessi adored his full, restraining hug with volunteer Andria, one of the more complex requirements, shown in Photo 4.

Photos 5 and 6 show some of the complex situations in which Blessi just was an angel. He needed to walk through a crowd, have an object make an unexpected noise behind him, deal with volunteers portraying people with movement irregularities, have a couple get into an argument and then walk up for pets, have multiple people pet him. He just seeks out and thrives with this kind of attention.

The other exercise in which Blessi and I scored a 1, instead of a 2, was walking past a neutral dog. Blessi was fine walking past the sweet, old black lab. But he was late starting the walk because he insisted on staying and socializing with a volunteer and I did not set him up for success in the exercise by anticipating this.

All together there were 17 exercises. But Photo 7 shows Blessi's real challenge--"Leave the toy."

The Pet Partner Evaluater congratulated both Blessi and me on our team skills. But the real compliment was she asked after the test if her 6-year old grandson could come ride Blessi on his next visit.

Note we never officially became Pet Partners since I didn't pay the final membership fee.