Dogs Helping People
How to join
Are you happy to commit some of your time to others?
Are you based in New Zealand?
How it works
Canine Friends are people throughout New Zealand who share their well behaved dogs with hospital patients and residents of hospices and rest homes.
Canine Friends Pet Therapy is a New Zealand-wide network of people who share their friendly well behaved dogs with other people patients in hospitals and residents in rest homes and hospices.Pet therapy usually helps people in care who may be feeling isolated with a furry head laid on a knee, the touch of a dog's silky coat, someone to listen, reminders of happier times.
Pet therapy works on many levels to make unwell people feel reconnected to the world.
Discover more
Health research in New Zealand and overseas shows clearly that many people show great improvement in their health and attitude through interaction with visiting animals.
Health research in New Zealand and overseas shows clearly that many people show great
improvement in their health and attitude through interaction with visiting animals.
Many people benefit greatly from the natural affection that most dogs have for humans
especially the elderly and unwell.
Canine Friends experience, and anecdotal evidence, shows that people are energised, comforted and entertained by visiting dogs.
Dogs give people a reason to communicate...and this can be the first step in ending isolation and loneliness..especially for rest home residents and those confined to bed or wheel chairs.
The first thing residents and patients do when they meet a visiting dog is reach out and touch them. This strong need is often not met in any other way when people are in long term care situations.
The touch of a dog usually sparks reminiscences and stories of loved pets and happier times.
Everybody wins
Patients, residents.and staff look forward to the visits and thoroughly enjoy them. They also relive their own experiences with loved pets in the past. After visits they share the experience again with other patients.
Dogs enjoy being patted and scratched and talked to with affection and interest.
Dog owners enjoy seeing patients' faces light up as they are transported through the touch of a furry coat.
Pet therapy in action: enjoy these stories about our Canine Friends and the joy they bring to their friends and patients.