Programs that help veterans with PTSD, inmates serving a sentence in prison, emotionally disturbed individuals or people who are isolated improve their personal and social functioning by giving them an opportunity to take responsibility for and/or relate to a domestic animal. In some cases, the animals may be selected due to comparable histories of trauma. Also included are programs that bring dogs or other small pets to visit people residing in a nursing facility or another institutional setting who are ill or elderly or have disabilities; and those that employ Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.) who volunteer with their owner/handler as a team, going to schools, libraries and many other settings as reading companions for children. A similar program offers children the opportunity to learn to read by reading to one of its therapy horses.

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