Therapet

Therapet aim to provide an educational service to promote responsible dog ownership throughout Scotland.

We recently helped them with grant funding and received this letter thanking us for the support.

“In 2025, The Murgitroyd Foundation generously awarded us £5,000 to support our volunteers and their Therapets in delivering Reading with Dogs in schools across Glasgow and Strathclyde. Our calm, friendly Therapets sit and listen as children read aloud, helping them relax and grow in confidence. We also received increasing requests from schools for Therapet® wellbeing visits to support pupils who were struggling.

1am delighted to inform you on what your support has helped us achieve.

We have 38 registered Therapets currently working in 40 Schools in Glasgow and Strathclyde. Some of our volunteers and their Therapets are making weekly visits to more than one school to support children’s reading.

Over 2025 around 100 children have had weekly Reading with Dogs visits and are their reading and self- confidence have improved.

Therapets and their volunteers made over 300 visits to schools’ wellbeing hubs to assist children/young people with poor mental health, having suffered a bereavement or family breakdown and who were finding it difficult to cope with school.

In addition, our volunteers and their Therapets have been working one to one in schools supporting pupils with complex needs using the calming influence of the dog. CAMHS have also asked us to support their visitsin schools, and we are piloting visits with social services supporting children who need to be interviewed. Such visits typically start with children interacting with the dog, talking, reading prior to talking with the specialist staff.

We have also visited West of Scotland Mother & Baby Unit at Leverndale Hospital, Royal Hospital for Children (Ward 4), Robin House Children’s Hospice (Balloch), as well as organisations working with children such as the SupERkids.”

Melanie Hughes, Chief Executive
Therapet

Learn more about Therapet by clicking here!