The The Bright and Beautiful Therapy Dogs, Inc. is a non-profit organization which evaluates, tests, trains and qualifies owners and their well behaved dogs as therapy dog teams. These teams give unconditional love, boost self-esteem, and relieve loneliness and boredom, to name just a few benefits. They work in nursing homes, hospitals, psychiatric wards, shelters, schools and many other facilities.

Pet therapists are in great demand, and there is a serious shortage of therapy dogs.

Our dogs visit children in pediatrics. Most of the children have never been away from home before. They are frightened and fearful at the prospect of having to spend the night in a big scary hospital. Sometimes the children are severely handicapped. When they visit, the dogs seem to spark a reaction no one has ever seen before.

We visit lonely seniors in nursing and assisted living homes. They provide a welcome change in their routine and form lasting friendships with the dogs and handlers. They bring back pleasant memories of family pets in days gone by.

When we visit rehabilitation facilities and hospitals, the patients are able to ease the boredom of institutional life or the pain of recent surgery by visits from a friendly face with a wagging tail. Sometimes a depressed patient who hasn’t spoken in months will talk to a dog. Difficult patients can become more compliant with a furry face to convince them.

We never charge for visitation. We believe visitation should be conducted as a volunteer service, because the handlers and their dogs are volunteers. We pride ourselves upon being an all volunteer organization, so contributions and donations are important to us. Of course, all are tax deductible.

Our handlers and dogs come in all ages, shapes and sizes — they are truly bright and beautiful.

June Golden,
Executive Director
The Bright & Beautiful Therapy Dogs, Inc.