AAS Certification

Certification in Animal Assisted Services

Why Get Certified?

At Dreamcatcher™ Animal Assisted Wellness Academy, we have been educating people from around the world to the highest standards in Animal Assisted Services (AAS) for more than a decade. There is no other helping medium quite like working with animals. In order to ensure these AAS programs are safe, ethical and effective, it is vital that professionals hoping to work with animals within their scope of practice first gain the necessary knowledge and skill.
Including a sentient being of an entirely different species within your work with people can be exhilarating, heartwarming, joyful and effective but without enough preparation for both the professional and the animal it can become frustrating, overwhelming, confusing and even dangerous.
At Dreamcatcher™ Animal Assisted Wellness Academy, we have worked extensively to offer the most in-depth and comprehensive education and certification in Canada. If you are in a helping profession, have a passion for animals and would like to explore how you can partner with an animal safely and effectively within your scope of practice, we have a program tailored to your needs.
Lakeland College also offers a college accredited certificate in Animal Assisted Wellness, for people who already hold at least a college level education in a helping profession. The certificate program was created in partnership with Dreamcatcher™ Animal Assisted Wellness Academy. Certain trainings taken at Dreamcatcher™ previously, may count as credits towards the certificate through Lakeland (contact us for more details about this).

Students will take the course that fits their profession or scope of practice:

Animal Handler
- People with a strong love for helping people and working with animals but have no official helping professional qualifications – must either be 18 years or older at the time certification is granted or be accompanied by an adult while Animal Handling until the age of 18 years after certification is granted. The Animal Handler Certification Process is under construction and will be posted soon.
Animal Assisted Practitioner
- Undergraduate level helping professionals. This includes Child and Youth Care Counsellors, Rehabilitation Practitioners, Addictions Counsellors, Life Coaches, and anyone else who holds a Bachelor degree in the helping professions. Candidate must be 21 years of age or older at the time the certificate is granted.
Animal Assisted Educator
- For people who are educators, teacher’s aides, instructors by profession
Animal Assisted Therapist
- Master level helping professionals. This includes mental health therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses and anyone else who holds a Master degree in their helping profession and is a trained and qualified therapist. Candidate must be 21 years of age or older at the time the certificate is granted.

You will have the option to choose whether you will be working with canines, farm animals and other small animals

Equines – Dreamcatcher™ encourages all people wanting to certify to work with full-sized equines to contact EFW Canada

Acquiring Certification in Animal Assisted Services

Train the Animal
Train the Handler
Train the Team

If you already own the an animal you wish to partner with in AAS, we recommend that you start our Prepare Your Animal training program as soon as possible. You do not need to have your professional AAS education/certification complete in order to start the training process with your animal. Through Dreamcatcher™, you can be certified as a professional in AAS without having your own animal; however, you cannot have your animal certified without being educated in how to integrate the animal within your scope of practice. This is because having having the most well-trained animal in the world does not ensure successful or effective AAS sessions. In fact, the animal in an AAS session is only as effective as the professional they are working with. You are a team!

Click to enlarge photo.

Please read these outlines on the steps you need to take to get your dog certified:

1. Training Process for you and your Canine.
2. Screening Process for your Canine.

Farm & Small Animal Assisted Services

There is a growing body of research to support working with animals to help people. As there are many benefits to this medium of therapy it is becoming a very popular therapeutic alternative.

This certification process has been developed to meet the growing demand from professionals to receive a certificate for their training in Animal Assisted Interventions. Many professionals are either already partnering with their animals to deliver therapeutic services or interested in doing so.

Some aspects of this certification process were modeled after the Equine Facilitated Wellness - Canada (EFW-CAN) certification. Dreamcatcher™ wishes to extend thanks to this group for permission to utilize their well-developed certification process for working with equines in professional practice as a model for this certificate in Animal Assisted Therapy and Wellness.

AAS certification steps

Upcoming Training

Our certification program runs year-round with our internships occurring in May or June. Click the link below to start your training.
2025 Internship dates to be posted by January.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Learn how to ethically and effectively integrate animals into your helping Profession!

Start your AAS Journey with Dreamcatcher™ by choosing one of our 2 unique programs that best fit your needs!

Join us next year for our..
Animal Assisted Services Introductory Workshop!
2025 date TBD
This one day workshop will introduce you to working with a variety of species in therapeutic or educational contexts, while providing information and education about animal behaviour and communication in the species of your choice! This workshop is not part our certification process, but will give you the opportunity to learn more about the intricacies of animal assisted service and what it entails to work with them ethically. Options to attend both in person and virtually are offered.

Join us for our..
Exploring Animal Assisted Services Internship!
2025 date TBD
This training is experiential and includes education about how canines, equines and farm animals may be incorporated into therapeutic and educational settings and professions. Tailored to suit the needs of participants, this training may be focused more on one species than another (e.g., canines vs equines). Participants attend the training at the Dreamcatcher™ ranch and partake in a combination of theoretical and hands-on applications while exploring the intricacies of AAS fields to learn how to ethically integrate animals into a therapeutic or educational setting. This training is part of Dreamcatcher™ certification in Animal Assisted Services. Options to attend both in person and virtually are offered.

Special Notice
Dreamcatcher™ does not provide animal assisted services training to anyone who will be:

Practicing Animal Assisted Services in a farm animal setting within a 50km radius of the Dreamcatcher™ facility
Practicing equine facilitated work in the same manner as Dreamcatcher™ within a 50 km radius of Dreamcatcher™.

This includes but is not limited to: individual therapy, group therapy, skill building, team building, specialized camps and retreats, teaching and training, field trips and other services that are specific to Animal Assisted Services.