Before a social working dog enters a classroom, meets a participant, or joins a therapy session, we usually have a plan. We know what we hope to achieve, which activities we have prepared, and how much time we have.
But what does the dog want?
The Social WorkingDog Is the Boss is an adaptation of the original The Dog Is the Boss concept, which encourages us to give dogs meaningful choices and listen to their communication in everyday life.
This adaptation brings those same principles into therapeutic, educational, and supportive settings. The questions have been developed to reflect the situations social working dogs encounter: preparing for a session, choosing whether to participate, responding to touch, and deciding when they need to stop.
The foundation remains the same: the dog’s response should influence what happens next. For the social working dog, this is expressed through four simple questions:
Are you ready? Do you want to? May I? Are you done?
Here, “social working dog” refers to dogs working with handlers in therapeutic, educational, and supportive settings. Being “the boss” means having a meaningful influence over their own participation. The handler still carries responsibility for welfare, preparation, and everyone’s safety.
The central commitment is simple: when the dog gives an answer, that answer must influence what happens next.
We cannot explain a session to a dog as we would to a human colleague. We can, however, create familiar routines, offer understandable choices, observe behaviour, and make it possible to decline or leave an interaction. The four questions are reminders for us to do this consistently.
There is a scientific basis for taking choice seriously, although the evidence needs to be described carefully.
In Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control, Leotti, Iyengar, and Ochsner (2010) reviewed research suggesting that the desire for control has biological roots. Drawing on human and animal research, they discussed how opportunities to choose can be valuable in themselves and how perceived control can influence responses to stress. This provides a broad foundation for thinking about choice and welfare; it does not directly test social working dogs or the Boss concept.
Patall, Cooper, and Robinson (2008) examined 41 studies in The Effects of Choice on Intrinsic Motivation and Related Outcomes. Their meta-analysis found that providing choice generally enhanced intrinsic motivation, effort, performance, and perceived competence, with effects varying by context. These were studies of children and adults, so we should avoid assuming identical effects in dogs. They nevertheless offer a useful perspective on why having a say can matter to participation.
Research involving therapy dogs brings the discussion closer to practice. Sarrafchi and colleagues’ 2025 pilot study, Can I touch you?, involved 18 certified therapy dogs and 44 human participants. It compared continuous touch while dogs were held on a lead with interactions in which dogs could move freely and were touched only when within reach. Dogs showed more ears-back behaviour in the restrained condition. When free to move, they spent approximately 78% of their time within participants’ reach.
The differences were subtle, and the conditions differed in both restraint and how touch was delivered. The study cannot tell us exactly what each dog felt. It does show that providing an opportunity to move away can coexist with substantial voluntary proximity to people—a finding especially relevant to “May I?” and “Are you done?”
This question invites us to check the dog’s condition before beginning. A session may be scheduled to start, but the dog may still need to explore the room, recover from the journey, drink, or settle.
We might ask: “Are you ready to put on your working harness?”, “Are you ready to enter the room?”, or “Are you ready to begin again after your break?”
The spoken words are only part of the routine. What matters is providing time and observing the dog’s response. A familiar, willingly offered behaviour can help communicate readiness, but it should always be considered alongside the dog’s overall behaviour and circumstances.
A practical approach is to build arrival time into the schedule. Let preparation include the dog’s needs, rather than expecting readiness at the moment we arrive.
This question concerns the particular activity being offered. A dog may be ready to work and still prefer one interaction over another.
“Do you want to approach this person?”
“Do you want to join this activity?”
“Do you want to sit beside the participant while they read?”
These become meaningful questions when declining is an available outcome. If we repeat the invitation, increase pressure, or lure the dog closer until they comply, we make the answer harder to interpret.
We can instead offer an activity, pause, and accept the response. A dog who chooses to remain at a distance may be able to participate in another way, or may need a break. The session should have enough flexibility to accommodate that possibility.
This question asks us to pause before initiating an action involving the dog’s body or personal space.
“May I put on your working harness?”
“May I stroke your shoulder?”
“May I brush you during this activity?”
For touch, one practical option is to offer a brief interaction and then pause, giving the dog room to move away or seek further contact. Remaining still is not sufficient evidence of wanting more. Look at the whole dog and the context, and treat uncertainty as a reason to pause.
A dog approaching someone also does not automatically invite every kind of contact. They may want to investigate without being stroked, or enjoy brief contact without wanting it to continue.
This gives participants an opportunity to practise observing and respecting boundaries: “Let’s pause and see what the dog would like to do next.”
This question keeps the opportunity to finish available throughout the session.
“Are you done being stroked?”
“Are you done with this activity?”
“Are you done working for today?”
A willingness to begin does not commit the dog to completing our plan. Build in regular pauses and provide an accessible resting place where participants leave the dog undisturbed. If a lead is required, arrange the interaction so it still allows distance and withdrawal within a safe space.
We should also act before the dog has to make a strong objection. The handler can end an interaction whenever welfare requires it, even if the dog continues to perform familiar behaviours.
Alongside recognising when a dog needs to stop, we should ask what makes their working day enjoyable. In a 2026 study, Visser and colleagues compared observations from 63 dogs across 837 animal-assisted service sessions with behavioural thresholds developed by experts. Stress-related behaviours were generally within the proposed acceptable ranges, while behaviours associated with positive emotional states often fell below the experts’ proposed minimums.
These thresholds are an emerging approach, rather than a definitive test of each dog’s feelings. Still, the findings encourage a valuable question: are we providing opportunities for dogs to enjoy their work, as well as monitoring for signs that they are struggling?
There is also encouraging evidence that carefully managed work can involve limited measured stress. Melco and colleagues studied nine certified therapy dogs taking part in sessions with children diagnosed with ADHD. They recorded occasional stress-associated behaviours and found no significant differences in cortisol or heart rate between the activities compared. Published online in 2018 and in a 2020 journal issue, the study supports the possibility of low-stress participation under the conditions studied. Its small sample does not establish that every dog or setting will have the same experience.
Together, these findings support thoughtful attention to the individual dog. They do not establish the four-question framework as a scientifically validated protocol. The framework is a practical way to turn concern for choice and welfare into decisions we make before, during, and after work.
For the questions to work, the environment must support the answers. Plan breaks. Give participants clear guidance. Make withdrawal possible. Have an alternative activity ready. Notice patterns across sessions: which interactions the dog approaches, which they decline, and when their willingness changes.
A brief record can help us adjust future work to the dog we actually observe. Repeated reluctance deserves a reassessment of the activity, environment, workload, or the dog’s suitability for that role.
The next time we prepare a session, we can leave space beside our goals and activity plan for the dog’s contribution.
Are you ready?
Do you want to?
May I?
Are you done?
Then we pause, observe, and let the answer matter.
References
Leotti, L. A., Iyengar, S. S., & Ochsner, K. N. (2010). Born to choose: The origins and value of the need for control. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(10), 457–463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.08.001
Melco, A. L., Goldman, L., Fine, A. H., & Peralta, J. M. (2020). Investigation of physiological and behavioral responses in dogs participating in animal-assisted therapy with children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 23(1), 10–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888705.2018.1536979
Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). The effects of choice on intrinsic motivation and related outcomes: A meta-analysis of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 270–300. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.270
Sarrafchi, A., de Zwaan, N., Tucker, M., & Merkies, K. (2025). Can I touch you? A pilot study comparing consensual and non-consensual human-dog touch interactions. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 285, Article 106560. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2025.106560
Visser, E. K., Jens, A. L., van Honk, P., van Asselt, M., & Haven-Pross, S. C. (2026). Establishing behavioural thresholds for dogs in animal-assisted services: Expert-derived thresholds and field study comparison. Animals, 16(7), Article 1078. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani16071078
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