When introducing the dogs into the educational process, the expressions used are mostly internationally accepted:
- A school dog is a therapy dog participating within the School Dog Network.
- A therapy dog is a dog with suitable background and a training certificate.
- A dog handler is a person who is responsible for the dog when working in school and who is otherwise the dog's owner and parent.
- AAI – Animal Assisted Intervention is any intervention which involves a therapy dog (or other animal – see notes below) as part of the therapy process.
- AAT - Animal Assisted Therapy is a goal-oriented therapeutic intervention that incorporates a dog into the treatment plan. The key factors here are expertise work, predetermined goals and progress follow-up.
- AAA – Animal Assisted Activity is an intervention which enables the participants a direct contact with the therapy dog. The meetings are spontaneous and can be done in a group. The purpose is to improve the quality of life of an individual.
- AAE – Animal Assisted Education is a goal-oriented intervention which includes a therapy dog into the educational process. The dog represents support to the teacher's work (see notes below). The purpose is to reach better educational goals.
Notes – to make our descriptions shorter, we use the following expressions which should be understood accordingly:
- The whole document defines work with dogs even though AAI, AAA, AAT, AAE have a much wider scope, including work with other animals.
- The term »teacher« refers to any educational professional (a nursery teacher, a teacher, a professor, a social educator, etc.)
- The term »student« refers to a child or an adolescent of any stage of the educational process.