The Visiting Pet Teams of South Mississippi Pet Therapy Group recently celebrated its summer graduation in Gulfport, Mississippi. After months of rigorous training and testing, a total of eighteen dogs and one bunny officially graduated from the program. These animals are now officially licensed. Certified therapy teams are cleared to serve the community across the Mississippi Gulf Coast as they have for the last twenty years.
“We’ve been an organized group for about 20 years,” shared Michael “Mike” Bowin, Executive Director and Visiting Pets Coordinator. “And we have somewhere in the neighborhood now of about thirty to thirty-five teams.”
A pet therapy team consists of one trained human handler and one certified animal. Together, they work as a unified volunteer unit.
“Our teams visit areas of various facilities throughout the Gulf Coast area, as far as Hattiesburg, with some visiting as far as Mobile and Lafayette,” shared Bowin.
Visits look different depending on where teams are deployed. Often, Visiting Pet Therapy teams will be asked to bring animals to hospitals, nursing homes, and hospice centers. The trained animals serve as a non-pharmacological intervention, help humanize highly clinical environments, and offer comfort and companionship in often difficult circumstances. Teams acts as a mobile source of stress relief, scientifically proven to help lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, and spark happiness.
“Mickey the bunny is a special non-canine addition to the team,” shared Bowin. “She is specifically trained to bring comfort and joy to local nursing homes.”
Visiting Pet Teams of South Mississippi also receives requests for places of learning, such as schools, colleges, and libraries.
“When we visit libraries with our dogs, we have the children select a book and sit down with the book and read to the dogs,” shared Bowin. “The children will even turn the book and show the dogs the pages and engage in the story with them; it’s really something special.”
“We also visit all colleges, especially at final exam time,” shared Bowin. “They bring us in, and it’s to help de-stress the students. And for a lot of years now, it’s been documented that when the animals come in and the students can have access to them, they actually do better on their finals.”
Visiting Pet Teams of South Mississippi functions as a local affiliate of the national body, Pet Partners. The team’s training follows strict, gold-standard safety frameworks to prepare pairs for real-world facility environments. The animals and handlers undergo comprehensive coursework and a strict evaluation process that can take anywhere from six months to a year.
“We’re always looking for more teams. If someone is interested in pet therapy, they contact us and come to a new member orientation,” explained Bowin. “This will give them an idea of what pet therapy is and the requirements that they need to go through to become a registered team.”
The organization relies heavily on its dedicated volunteers. For more updates on their community visits, you can check the Visiting Pet Teams of South Mississippi Facebook Page.
