How It all Began

Shari, Wayne, and Jane at the NCTD First Anniversary celebration

In the late 1980?s, formalized "pet therapy" was in its infancy. Most visiting programs were loosely organized; many were associated with animal shelters using transient animals. A number of us were involved in an organization that offered both assistance dogs and visiting dogs. Over time, the visiting dog program seemed to lose focus in deference to the assistance program.

We recognized that there was a need to offer a quality visiting program, and we decided to form a new non-profit to concentrate specifically on animal-assisted therapy and activities. In October 1990, Jane Bartholomew, Shari and I founded National Capital Therapy Dogs. There were six charter teams in the organization. The three of us were joined by Mona Shauffle with Rocky, Lynn Cooper and Magic, and Deborah and Jack Foley with Carolina. We coerced Ruth Chase into being our animal specialist. National Institutes of Health embraced us as our first facility. Soon after, Johns Hopkins Hospital became our second facility.

We set up our own evaluation protocol, incorporated, and started to slog through the process of becoming a recognized tax-exempt, non-profit organization. Jane, Shari, and I underwrote the operational expenses; we decided early on that we wanted our volunteers to be able to spend time providing client contact rather than conducting fund raising.

Through Ruth's training classes and informational exhibits at local pet food stores, we were able to recruit more volunteer teams. Soon we were offering "training," in the form of open floors, formalized evaluations for new teams; we even enlisted Ellen Shay to develop a volunteer handbook. We grew in size and added more facilities.

The rest is history. Twenty years later, NCTD is alive, vibrant, and serving more and more clients with the highest quality "product" that can be had.

Wayne Sternberger