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This mixed-methods study explored how participation in an intensive course on human-animal relationships impacted preservice teachers’ views about human-animal welfare and advocacy and animal-focused curriculum. Participants were 25 undergraduate students (24 female; 1 male) following a teacher education pathway. Participants completed the Animal Rights Scale, and their insights on assigned readings were captured through weekly journal entries and responses to summative prompts. Participants reported feeling increased responsibility to advocate on behalf of nonhuman animals and greater support of animal welfare during the post-course (versus pre-course) assessment, and participants’ weekly and summative responses revealed some of the nuances and internal tensions in their thinking about integrating animal-focused curriculum as part of their future professional practice. As teachers play key roles fostering humane literacy and engaging young people with actual nature and animals, these findings have implications for both education and higher education curriculum and initiatives.

Once used mostly in clinical settings such as hospitals and geriatric care centers, canine animal-assisted therapy programs have become increasingly commonplace on university campuses to reduce stress and support students’ social and emotional well-being. Researchers responding to the call for increased empirical rigor in studies assessing the effects of animal-assisted therapy and practitioners seeking to initiate well-being programs on campus can face challenges in accessing therapy dogs and their volunteer handlers. This article outlines how therapy canines and their handlers may be holistically assessed for participation in university-based initiatives and presents a model that includes the prescreening of volunteer handlers, training sessions for handlers, the use of multiple raters to assess canine temperament and behavior, the use of mock sessions, and the use of ongoing formative evaluation and feedback for handlers once they are accepted into the program.