Why Measuring Impact Matters

Therapy dog program metrics are more than numbers on a spreadsheet. They are the story of every patient who smiled, every anxious student who took a deep breath, and every grieving family member who found a moment of comfort because a dog walked into the room.

As a therapy dog handler or program coordinator, you give an enormous amount of time and heart to this work. Measuring your outcomes helps you show the world that what you do works. It protects your program when budgets get tight. And it helps you grow.

At TheraPetic®® Healthcare Provider Group, our clinical team has worked alongside therapy dog volunteers for years. We have seen firsthand how programs with strong outcome tracking earn more facility partnerships, secure more funding, and keep their volunteer teams motivated. The data backs up what you already know in your heart: this work changes lives.

Using Pre and Post Anxiety Scales

One of the most powerful tools in your program metrics toolkit is a simple anxiety scale. These are short questionnaires given to patients or participants before and after a therapy dog visit. The goal is to capture how someone felt before your dog arrived and how they feel after.

The most common tool used in healthcare settings is the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, often called the STAI. School programs frequently use the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale. Both are validated instruments, meaning research supports their accuracy. You do not need to create your own from scratch.

For quick, low-resource programs, a simple visual scale works well. Ask participants to point to a number between one and ten that shows how anxious or stressed they feel. Record the number before the visit. Record it again after. Even a small, consistent drop in that number across dozens of visits adds up to powerful evidence.

Make sure your facility partner approves any tool you use with patients. In clinical settings, a care team member should administer the scale. Handlers focus on the visit. Data collection is a separate role.

Collecting Patient Satisfaction Data

Therapy dog program metrics only tell part of the story when they focus on anxiety alone. Patient satisfaction data fills in the rest. It captures whether people felt respected, whether the visit felt right for them, and whether they would welcome a dog again.

Keep your satisfaction survey short. Three to five questions is plenty. Ask things like: Did the visit feel calming? Did the dog make you feel more comfortable? Would you like a therapy dog to visit again? Use simple yes or no answers or a one-to-five scale. Long surveys do not get filled out.

In pediatric wards and school reading programs, you can use smiley face scales or picture-based response cards. Children as young as five can communicate meaningful feedback this way. Do not assume that a young age means the feedback is less valid. Kids are honest in ways adults sometimes are not.

Collect this data after every visit if possible. Even a few responses per visit, gathered consistently over months, give you a sample large enough to spot real trends. That data becomes your program's proof of value when you sit down with a hospital administrator or a school principal.

Gathering Meaningful Staff Feedback

The nurses, teachers, social workers, and facility staff who witness therapy dog visits every week hold a different kind of insight than patients do. They see patterns across dozens of visits. They notice which patients light up when a dog enters the room. They know which units benefit most.

Build a short staff feedback form into your regular visit routine. Ask staff to note whether patient engagement increased, whether the unit atmosphere felt calmer, and whether the visit timing worked well. Ask them what could be improved. Make it easy to fill out in two minutes at the end of a shift.

Staff feedback also serves as a quality check for your team. If a nurse notes that a dog seemed overwhelmed during a visit, that is important information for the handler and the program coordinator to act on. A dog that is stressed cannot do therapeutic work. Staff observations help you protect your dogs and your participants at the same time.

Quarterly check-ins with a facility liaison go beyond forms. A fifteen-minute conversation can surface things no survey captures. Ask what the staff needs from your program. Ask what is working well. Build the kind of relationship where honest feedback flows both ways.

Tracking Visit Frequency and Reach

Therapy dog program metrics should always include basic operational data. How many visits did your team complete this month? How many individuals did your dogs interact with? How many different units, classrooms, or sites did you serve?

This data matters for two reasons. First, it shows the scale of your community impact. A program that completes forty visits per month and reaches two hundred individuals is making a measurable difference in its community. Second, it helps you identify gaps. If one unit never sees your team, find out why. If visit frequency dropped during a certain month, understand the cause so you can address it.

Create a simple visit log that every handler fills out after each session. Include the date, location, approximate number of individuals visited, duration, and any notable observations. Digital logs using a shared spreadsheet or a free form tool make this easy to aggregate at the end of each month.

Over time, visit frequency data tells you whether your program is growing, holding steady, or losing momentum. It gives program coordinators the information they need to recruit more volunteer teams, schedule more effectively, and celebrate milestones with the whole group.

Simple Tools for Program Coordinators

You do not need expensive software to run a solid outcome tracking system. Free tools can handle most of what a therapy dog program needs at any scale.

Google Forms lets you build satisfaction surveys and staff feedback forms at no cost. Responses feed directly into a spreadsheet that you can review at any time. Google Sheets also works well as a shared visit log that all handlers on your team can access from their phones.

For anxiety scale tracking in clinical settings, work with your facility partner to build the data collection into their existing patient experience workflow. Many hospitals already collect patient satisfaction data. Asking them to add two or three therapy dog-specific questions to an existing survey is often easier than running a separate system.

If your program operates in schools, connect with the school counselor or principal to see whether any social-emotional learning data is already being collected. Reading fluency data from reading-to-dogs programs is often tracked by teachers anyway. Ask to be part of that data conversation.

To learn more about how TheraPetic®® supports structured therapy dog programs and what team readiness looks like, visit our therapy dog team screening page.

Sharing Your Results With Stakeholders

Collecting data is only half the work. Sharing it is where the real program-building happens. A one-page summary of your program's outcomes is one of the most useful documents you can create as a coordinator.

Include your visit frequency for the past quarter, your average pre and post anxiety scale results, your patient satisfaction response rate and score, and two or three direct quotes from staff or participants. Keep the language plain. Use simple charts if you can. The goal is a document a busy hospital administrator can read in three minutes and feel confident about your program.

Share this summary at least twice a year with every facility partner you serve. Send it to your volunteer team too. Handlers who see the impact of their visits in real numbers stay motivated through long winters and busy schedules. Recognition and data together are a powerful retention tool for volunteer coordinators.

If your program is seeking new facility partnerships, bring your outcomes summary to every introductory meeting. Facilities want to know that they are welcoming a professional, accountable team into their space. Data communicates that professionalism better than any brochure.

Building a Stronger Program Over Time

The goal of therapy dog program metrics is not to prove that your program is perfect. It is to help you learn, adjust, and grow. Every program has areas where the data reveals room for improvement. That is a feature, not a flaw.

Review your outcomes quarterly as a team. Celebrate what is working. Talk honestly about what is not. If patient satisfaction scores are high but visit frequency is low, prioritize recruiting more volunteer teams. If staff feedback suggests a certain unit is not a good fit for visits, adjust your schedule rather than forcing it.

Encourage your handlers to reflect on their own observations too. A data system only captures what it measures. The handler who noticed that a patient cried quietly during a visit, or that a student finally read out loud for the first time because a dog was listening, holds information no form can record. Build a culture where those stories are shared alongside the numbers.

TheraPetic®® Healthcare Provider Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit built on the belief that every community deserves access to the healing power of trained therapy animal teams. Supporting volunteer handlers with the tools and knowledge to run strong, accountable programs is central to that mission.

Your commitment as a therapy dog volunteer is already remarkable. Measuring your impact turns that commitment into a legacy that grows year after year. For questions about program development or team readiness, reach our team at help@mypsd.org or call (800) 851-4390.