Log every pet therapy visit — handler hours, by program, in one place.
The dog-and-handler teams that brighten a hospice house deserve a real record, not a binder at the front desk. Give pet therapy its own area of service and track every handler hour and visit cleanly.
- Dedicated Pet Therapy area
- Handler hours & visits
- No patient data
A "Pet Therapy" area, tracked on its own
Pet therapy is one of the areas of service Volunteer Ledger is built around. Create a Pet Therapy area, and every visit's hours get tagged to it — so the program lives apart from the rest of your volunteer work instead of disappearing into a single combined total.
That dedicated area is what lets you treat pet therapy as the distinct program it is. Its hours roll up on their own, its handlers show up as their own group, and its contribution is visible the instant you open a report — no manual filtering, no guessing.
Handler hours and visit history without a binder
Most pet therapy programs run on a sign-in sheet or a binder that nobody can total. Here, each visit is a dated hour entry against the handler's record, so the visit history builds itself: you can see when teams visited, how often, and how the hours add up over a month, a quarter, or a year.
Because the handler is the volunteer, all the usual tools apply — time in / time out for the visit length, optional mileage if handlers drive to a hospice house, and entry notes if you want to capture the animal's name or the unit they visited. The binder becomes a real, searchable record.
Show the program's reach to funders and leadership
Pet therapy is one of the most beloved parts of a hospice program and one of the easiest to under-document. Run the Volunteer Hours report on the Pet Therapy area for any date range and you have a clean, print-ready number: total program hours, the handlers behind them, the period covered.
That's exactly what a funder who supports animal-assisted programs wants to see, and exactly the figure leadership likes for an annual report. The program's reach stops being a vague "people love it" and becomes documented hours you can put on a page.
Recognize your long-serving handler teams
Handler teams are loyal — many visit faithfully for years. Each handler's start date drives a years-of-service figure, and the roster's hours-this-year and last-activity columns plus smart views surface your most active teams and anyone who's drifted away from the visit calendar.
Set milestone tiers and the system flags when a handler crosses an hours or service-year mark, so the pin or the thank-you happens on time. The volunteers who show up week after week with a wagging tail in tow get noticed instead of overlooked.
A pet therapy program is easy to love and easy to leave undocumented. Giving it its own area of service is a small step that pays off every time you apply for a grant, write the annual report, or want to thank the handler who's been visiting for a decade.
Pet therapy tracking, answered
Can I track pet therapy as its own area of service?
Yes. Pet therapy is one of the areas of service the product is built around, and it works exactly like the others: create a Pet Therapy area and tag every visit's hours to it. From then on, the program has its own totals, its own roster slice, and its own line in every report — separate from administrative, bereavement, or auxiliary work.
Do I track the handler, the animal, or both?
You track the handler. The handler is the volunteer — the person whose hours, start date, and years of service the program recognizes — so each pet therapy visit is logged against the handler's record. The therapy animal is part of the story, of course, but it's the handler's volunteer time that the hours, roster, and reports are built on. You can always note the animal's name in an entry note if you like to keep it together.
Can I report just pet therapy hours for a grant?
Yes. Run the Volunteer Hours report on the Pet Therapy area for any date range and you get a clean, print-ready total of program hours, with the visits and handlers behind it. When a funder supports animal-assisted programs specifically, you can show that program's contribution on its own without separating it out of a combined spreadsheet by hand.
Does it work for other animal-assisted programs, not just dogs?
Yes. The area of service is about the program, not the species — so whether your therapy teams are dogs, cats, miniature horses, or anything else, they all log under your Pet Therapy area (or you can name the area whatever fits your program). The hours and reporting work the same regardless of which animals visit.
Can I see which handlers are most active this year?
Yes. The roster shows hours this year and last activity per volunteer, and smart views surface your high-hour handlers and anyone who hasn't logged a visit lately. So you can see at a glance who's carrying the program right now, who to thank, and who might need a nudge to get back on the visit calendar.
Give your pet therapy teams the record they've earned.
Start a free 90-day trial, set up your Pet Therapy area, and turn the front-desk binder into handler hours you can report and recognize. No credit card, no patient data.