About the Association

Purpose

The Holistic Therapy Dog Association recognises dogs for the role they occupy in the households that keep them. Not for obedience, not for task performance, and not for suitability to clinical work. For being, in the ordinary and specific sense, the animal a particular person orients their day around.

That relationship has no credential. Service animals have one. Clinical therapy animals have one. Competition dogs, working dogs and show dogs have several. The dog who is simply somebody's dog has nothing at all, and we thought that was an odd gap to leave open.

What we do

We maintain a public registry of recognised dogs, issue license numbers on a per-state, per-year basis, and produce a foil-stamped diploma bearing the dog's registered name and the date of issuance. The registry is searchable by anyone, without an account, because a record nobody can check is not a record.

Our pillars

Recognition, not evaluation. We do not assess dogs. A dog that barks at the postman, pulls on the lead and has never once come when called is exactly as eligible as any other.

Permanence. Records are not deleted. Expired registrations stay searchable and marked expired. Dogs that have died stay in the registry permanently, at no charge, for as long as the Association exists.

Restraint. We send five emails over two years. We do not run a rewards programme, a leaderboard, or a referral scheme. The registry is the product and the diploma is the artifact.

Plain dealing. This credential confers no legal rights and we say so on every page where it could conceivably matter. An institution that overstates its authority has none.

Leadership

The Association is directed by a Board of Trustees drawn from veterinary medicine, animal welfare law, behavioural research and programme administration. Their backgrounds and responsibilities are set out on the Leadership page, alongside the nine Founding Members whose registrations opened the registry.

Correspondence

The Association answers its mail. Enquiries go through the contact page and receive a response within 24 hours.