Dementia Dog

Welcome to Dementia Dog

What we do

From our base in Scotland we support families living with dementia, both at home and in community settings.

Dogs at home

Assistance Dogs

Dementia Assistance Dogs are trained to live at home with families, where a person has an early stage diagnosis and lives with a full-time carer. Pilot programmes in Scotland and Australia are demonstrating this model brings joy, companionship and practical help to both immediate family and their network. If you would like to know more please click here .

Dogs in the community

Community Dogs

This pioneering animal assisted intervention programme involves goal-oriented visits from a Dementia Community Dog and Handler who, working alongside a healthcare professional, can help people with dementia feel more independent, confident and connected in their community. For more information on our Community Dog programme please click here .

Dog Day Events

Based at dementia resource centres, Dog Days are fun group events bringing together people with dementia and their carers, with trained pet dogs and Dog Day volunteers. These monthly events encourage communication, positive reminiscence and joy as well as helping build social connections.

For more information on our Dog Day events please click here.

Our learning

We work closely with professional evaluators who independently measure the outcomes and benefits for the people we support.
Click here to find out more.

How it works

We are training up a special Dementia Dog family to explore the practical, emotional and social ways that dogs can help people to live well alongside dementia - both at home and out and about in the community.
Both our assistance and community dog programmes are developed in close collaboration with the families and individuals we support. Delivering these outcomes takes a unique combination of skills and experience drawn from the founding partners; Alzheimer Scotland and Dogs for Good.

While small-scale, this 3 year pilot project aims to build evidence-based learning with the potential to replicate on a wider scale as funding becomes available.

Currently the dementia assistance dog programme only exists in Scotland and Australia, through our collaboration with Assistance Dogs Australia and HammondCare .

From opening doors to fetching medication pouches, our Assistance and Community Dogs learn key skills to help structure routine and social connections for people living with dementia.

Starting at just 8 weeks old, each dog undergoes 2 years of specialised training by the Dogs for Good team.

The final stage of their advanced training takes place in Scotland, from our base at HMP Castle Huntly open prison.

Here, working in partnership with Paws for Progress and Scottish Prison Service, we have established the UK's first prison-based assistance dog training programme.

Who we are

We are a collaboration between Alzheimer Scotland and Dogs for Good, combining professional expertise to pilot and develop new services for people living with dementia.
Our collaboration is called the Dementia Dog Project and is funded by charitable donations.

We are based at HMP Castle Huntly open prison near Dundee, where we work with the Scottish Prison Service and Paws for Progress CIC to help train our family of Dementia Dogs.

Our Tremendous Team

Our Fantastic Families

Our Delightful Dogs

Our Fabulous Funders

Get Involved

Though our team is small we have big ambitions! If you would like to consider getting involved, here are the three key ways:
- Would you or someone you know benefit from some trained dog support?
- Fancy volunteering at a Dog Day event, or as a boarder for trainee assistance dogs?
- Can you help raise funds to allow us to continue our work?
If so please follow the links below, we'd love to hear from you.

Apply for dog support

Volunteer

Raise funds

Our blog

The place where you share our latest news

Meet Billy, Scotland’s first Dementia Community Dog.

Billy began his relocation to Scotland from Dogs for Good in Banbury in September of 2017 to become Scotland’s first…

Exciting new collaboration unveiled with the Scottish Prison Service.

Today at HMP Castle Huntly, together with partners the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and Paws for Progress CIC, we are…