"Dr. Mary Burch's Volunteering With Your Pet is a necessary manual for anyone who wishes to join the growing number of volunteers who are bringing comfort and well-being into therapy settings by supplementing conventional medicine with the healing potential of contact with animals. " —Dr. Aaron Katcher, Associate Professor Emeritus Oral Medicine and Psychiatry University of Pennsylvania This is a book for anyone interested in working with their pet to help others: clients in nursing homes, students at all grade levels, people with physical or emotional disabilities—even prisoners. Today there are countless opportunities to use animals as catalysts to better health. Volunteering With Your Pet gives in-depth information on getting started, including how to evaluate your pet and yourself to determine what kind of setting and work in which you'd be best. A section on which pets do what and why has chapters on activities for dogs, cats, horses, farm animals and other critters; another section explains what to expect in various therapeutic settings. Numerous case studies show how you and your pet can make a difference.