History of PAWS

Lynne Robinson, after 23 years of teaching in public schools, retired and chose to volunteer with several different organizations until she rescued Boo Radley, a 112 pound deep reddish golden retriever and became a pet therapy team with him leading the way. After joining another pet therapy organization for about a year, Lynne realized the tremendous power of pet therapy and decided to found PAWS for People – to focus on the healing aspect of pet therapy and teach other therapy teams how to do individualized therapeutic visits for which PAWS is known.

Demand for reliable, top quality pet therapy became such that PAWS began to grow rapidly, but intentionally, and as our site requests increased, so did the number of people that wanted to join PAWS with their gentle, friendly pets.

Always conscious of the need for continuous improvement, PAWS began adding programs and trainings to fit those programs, so that teams wanting to work with kids in libraries needed to take the PAWS for Reading Training. People wanting to visit with clients in mental health sites were encouraged to complete the PS (Psychiatric Support) PAWS training. The number of our programs grew to support the interests of our members and the number of trainings grew to support our programs. We now offer 24 different types of programs to our members.

With our mission of loving individualized visits with gentle, sweet pets always at our heart, PAWS has grown to be the largest pet therapy organization in the Mid-Atlantic region serving all of Delaware and parts of PA, NJ, and MD and a diverse group of dedicated people and their amazing therapy pets.

We say that our main objective is “to provide the very best visit for everyone involved” – the recipient, the therapy human, and the pet. With our eye on that objective, we continue to recruit, train, certify, place, and oversee happy humans and adorable pets doing the very best pet therapy we can provide.