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A therapy dog is a dog trained to provide affection and comfort to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, hospices, disaster areas, and to people with autism. Therapy dogs are usually not assistance or service dogs, but can be one or both with some organizations. ==History== During World War II, Corporal William Wynne found an adult, female Yorkshire Terrier abandoned on the battlefield; he named the dog Smoky. Smoky began as a therapy dog when Wynne was hospitalized for a jungle disease. As Wynne recovered, his friends brought Smoky to the hospital to cheer the soldier up. Smoky immediately became popular with the other wounded soldiers. The commanding officer, Dr. Charles Mayo (of the Mayo Clinic), allowed Smoky to go on ward rounds and also to sleep with Wynne on his hospital bed. Smoky’s use as a therapy dog continued for 12 years, during and after World War II.〔http://www.smokywardog.com/blog/smoky/〕 The systematic use of therapy dogs is attributed to Elaine Smith,〔http://www.tdi-dog.org/About.aspx?Page=Mission+Statement+and+History〕〔http://www.oes.org/page2/37268~Founder_of_therapy_dogs_in_the_US_died.html〕 who worked as a registered nurse. Smith noticed how well patients responded to visits by a chaplain and his Golden Retriever. In 1976, Smith started a program for training dogs to visit institutions, and the demand for therapy dogs continued to grow. In recent years, therapy dogs have been enlisted to help children overcome speech and emotional disorders. In 1982, Nancy Stanley founded Tender Loving Zoo (TLZ), a non-profit organization that introduced animal therapy to severely disabled children and convalescent hospitals for the elderly. She got the idea while working at the Los Angeles Zoo, where she noticed how disabled visitors responded eagerly to animals. She researched the beneficial effects that animals can have on patients and then began taking her pet miniature poodle, Freeway, to the Revere Developmental Center for the severely disabled. Inspired by the response of the patients and the encouragement of the staff, she bought a van, recruited helpers and persuaded a pet store to lend baby animals. Soon requests for TLZ visits were coming from schools, hospitals and convalescent homes throughout the county. Partly as a result of Stanley's work, the concept of dog-therapy has broadened to "animal-assisted therapy" or "pet therapy", including many other species, such as therapy cats, therapy rabbits and therapy birds.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Pet Partners )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「therapy dog」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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