I've had some incidental and terrible encounters with a friend's standard poodle: it never stopped barking at me. I was, at one point, standing across the hallway from her apartment door, pressed against the wall and not looking at it or moving or reacting in any way, and it kept on barking at me. I don't know what I was or wasn't doing, but she had to haul the dog off into the back of the apartment before I could come in. Also, her spaniel kept nosing at me and trying to get close, even when I was just standing in the kitchen and not making any eye contact with it.

I've yet to meet a dog that respects boundaries or reacts to what I'm trying to put forth.

What would the cat, dog, or rabbit bring to your practice? I'm honestly curious what their benefits would be to your patients, because I've never worked with a therapy animal such as those.