There is now a waiting list for the Humane Society of Northeast Georgia’s popular pet therapy program.

All the attention the humane society has gathered this year with a name change and a new mission has put the pet therapy program in the spotlight as well.

Kelly Uber, director of education and volunteer development for the humane society, said she has gotten many more requests for pet therapy, which pairs volunteers and shelter animals with nursing homes and other facilities.

Uber said there are now six organizations hoping to work with the nonprofit, but there are not enough volunteers.

Volunteers take puppies to visit with people in facilities who may be lonely or have special needs.

“Everyone seems to need some kind of pet therapy,” Uber said. “It’s been proven to help in the healing process, help kind of reduce that stress they have in the facility.”

Humane Society President Rick Aiken said pets and volunteers may be the only visitors some elderly people see some days.

“We don’t mean to, but sometimes when a person gets into a home like that, the family has their life and kids, and they just don’t get to come out and see them as much as they would like,” Aiken said. “It’s really good when you have (volunteers) come in and spend some time with them.”

Aiken said the experience is often just as rewarding for the volunteers, who have the opportunity to meet some very interesting and accomplished people.

Calm puppies are typically chosen from the shelter’s adoptable animals to go out for visits, but sometimes other animals, like rabbits, work in pet therapy, too.

Aiken said kittens are typically not used in pet therapy because they tend to scratch.

The pet therapy program is somewhat of an institution. Uber said there are photos of volunteers with animals in nursing homes taken as early as the 1960s and ’70s.

“They were going out before a lot of the pet therapy programs were organized,” Uber said.

While the interaction with new people is important, Uber said there is nothing like the instant bond between people and animals.

“They can a lot of times seem to relate to that animal,” Uber said. “I think when people work with animals it opens up this completely different door of this compassion that really isn’t there between humans.”