The Gryffin Project

Dr. Gryffin Padfoot is a young male black Labrador retriever who has been working with children who have developmental delay and/or autism spectrum disorder since he was 11 weeks old. He is one of a kind; the first canine to be trained in both therapy dog and service dog techniques to assist children with autism.

You may recognize his name from the Harry Potter series; Gryffin was named after Gryffindor and Sirius Black, the wizard who could turn himself into a black dog named Padfoot. We think he is pretty magical, and his name fits him well!

Gryffin is a certified therapy and service dog, and is trained to detect the start of emotional dysregulation and alert when a child begins to feel anxiety or stress. He can pick up on a child’s anxiety before we can even tell the child is becoming upset! He provides comfort measures, such as sitting next to the child so they can stroke his fur or ears to calm themselves, giving the child a “hug,” and laying at the child’s feet or resting his head in the child’s lap. Gryffin is also trained to interact with children to enhance their prosocial skills by playing fetch, tug of war, hide and seek, puzzles, and chase. Gryffin loves to give high fives to children who meet therapy goals, and his favorite interactive activity is to fetch tennis balls or catch flying discs at the start of each session. Animal-Assisted Therapy sessions occur once weekly in 30- to 60-minute sessions for 8 to 12 total weeks. Children can re-enroll in the AAT program as often as needed to achieve their therapy goals.

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