In Australia, therapy dog training costs anywhere from nothing, if you volunteer your dog through a program that assesses it for free, to about $1,500 for a three-day certificate course, with some courses charging around $300 a year on top to reassess. My own route is $450 for an assessment, and $2,250 all up if the dog goes on to the four-week program with the workplace paperwork included. The price tells you very little about what you're buying, so here is what each tier gets you.
What you are paying for
Not a licence. There is no therapy dog certificate in Australia with any legal weight, no register and no government test. So every dollar goes to one of three things: a course, a piece of paper your workplace will accept, or a dog that can do the job. The first two are easy to sell. The third is the only one your principal or practice manager is asking about, whether they know it or not.
Free: the volunteer programs
If you want your dog visiting a hospital, a school reading program or an aged care home, the organisations that run those teams assess the dog themselves. Paws Pet Therapy, Story Dogs, Delta Therapy Dogs and Lort Smith all run their own temperament test, and most charge little or nothing beyond a handler course. They also accept no outside certificate, mine included, so paying for one first is money spent twice. The four of them are listed on my Dog at Work page.
The catch is that these are visiting teams. If the dog is yours and the workplace is yours, a psychologist's room or your own classroom, you are not their customer.
$275 to $1,500: certificate courses
In Melbourne the course market runs from an assessment day at a few hundred dollars to multi-day courses at around $1,500, often with an annual reassessment fee on top. You get a certificate, some handling theory, and a dog that has passed a test on the day in a room full of other dogs.
I get the phone call from the other end of this two or three times a month. The certificate is on the fridge and the dog still greets every child in the corridor, or can't lie still for a fifty-minute session, or needs a treat every four minutes to stay down in a room where treats aren't allowed. The course taught the dog to pass the course. Nobody taught it to switch off at work. A dog that thinks where's my treat is a pet in a vest.
$450, then $2,250 all up: the way I do it
The first step is an assessment, not a program. $450, ninety minutes, in your home or your workplace. I read the dog and tell you where it sits: four weeks away from the job, a longer road, or the wrong dog for it. Some dogs will never be comfortable with a stranger crying a metre away, and I'd rather say so at the start than take four weeks of your money. Stop there and $450 is all you pay.
If the dog can do it, the PACE Program follows: four weekly sessions, video feedback between them, $1,800, $2,250 all up with the assessment. For professionals it includes the Dog at Work pack: a signed letter of assessment, a risk register built on the Victorian Department of Education template, a one-page dog-at-work policy, and a filmed fifty-minute settle in your actual room. That video is worth more to a principal than any certificate, because they can watch the dog do the job before they say yes.
It is the same program every client of mine does, because a therapy dog is a well-raised dog with a job. The only thing we add is the paperwork, and the paperwork is included.
The costs nobody puts on the course page
Whatever route you take, your workplace will also ask for a vet check from the last twelve months with vaccinations, worming and desexing on it, which is one vet visit. Council registration. And insurance: if you're staff, the Victorian schools policy says you carry pet insurance, and if you own the practice, a call to your broker to note animal-assisted work on your indemnity. None of it is expensive. All of it gets asked for.
Common questions
Is there a cheaper way to get a therapy dog?
If you want to volunteer rather than bring the dog to your own work, the visiting programs assess your dog for free or close to it and don't want a prior certificate. If the dog is coming to your own workplace, the cheapest route is a dog raised on the four modes from puppyhood, because then there is nothing to retrain.
Do I have to pay to reassess my therapy dog every year?
No law says so. Some courses build an annual fee into their model. I reassess when something changes: a new workplace, a new role for the dog, or a dog that has started to struggle. The video and the letter are dated, and a principal who wants a fresh one can have it.
Does the $2,250 include the paperwork?
Yes, for professionals bringing their own dog to work. The letter of assessment, risk register, policy and filmed settle are part of the program, not an extra.
If you're a psychologist, teacher, OT or practice owner and the dog is already at your feet at home, tell me about your dog and write "therapy dog" and your profession in the goals box. I work across Melbourne's inner west and online for the reading and the plan.