Howie | Therapy Dog (In Training)

About Howie:

Howie is a 3 year old Great Swiss Mountain Dog. He is in clinic most days as he progresses with his training to become a registered Therapy Dog.

He has a long way to go, particularly as he still has a lot of his puppy enthusiasm, but at heart he is a true gentle giant (weighing in at around 55kg).

I understand that not everyone likes dogs, but please don’t let this put you off coming to clinic. Howie has his own little enclosure and is exceptionally well behaved - he never interrupts anyone’s session (unless you count snoring as an interruption).

Howie’s training:

The first step of Howie’s training is for him to learn to be calm around people.

This is a bit of a challenge for him at the moment as he loooooves people!

Once he has learnt to stay calm around people then the next part of Howie's training will be to interact with patients.

Eventually I hope that Howie will be able to take part in rehab sessions with patients. It is my hope that Howie will be able to use his size to help people recover from accidents and illnesses that have affected their ability to walk.

Great Swiss Mountain Dogs:

Great Swiss Mountain Dogs, or Swissies as they are affectionately known as are quite a rare breed in the UK. They are a big dog, we are expecting Howie to get to around 65kg when he is fully grown!

They have a multi role working background, Swissies were traditionally used as herding dogs, but they would also guard the herd and pull carts to and from the herd’s location.

The decision to train Howie as a Therapy Dog:

It was originally Howie’s breeder who started me thinking about Howie becoming a therapy dog. Howie has relatives that work in schools.

Within days of collecting Howie it was obvious that he was very (very) intelligent. As the first few weeks went by myself and my wife Beth realised that he is also a very driven dog.

We suspected at this point that it would be good for him to have a ‘job’. Over the following months of training this became more and more evident. He is happiest when he is stealing washing, but second to that it is when he is doing a training task….and getting it right.

Despite his puppy enthusiasm, his true nature is that of a very calm dog which makes him ideal for therapy work.

Overlaying this with my background and how I work I think that in the years to come Howie will be able to make a huge difference to my patient’s lives.