Raising and training assistance and therapy dogs enable people with special needs to facilitate significant everyday life tasks and social contact with the help of a trained and wellbehaved dog. The most commonly used breeds are Labrador Retriever and Golden Retriever, but today the Poodle and the German Shepherd are increasingly important. Dogs used as helpers or therapy dogs are specially raised and trained dogs that go to the user after a long period of socialisation and training and help them in their daily activities. Users of therapy dogs are most often blind people (guide dogs), children with developmental disabilities (therapy dogs) or immobile people (rehabilitation dogs). The security that a service dog or therapy dog can provide to a person is a significant factor in the user's daily life. The thesis aimed to describe the origin and historical development of dogs briefly, the systematisation and division of dogs according to the method of breeding and purpose, and then to explain the breeding training and socialisation of assistance dogs and dogs used for therapeutic purposes. The importance of the work of specific associations in the Republic of Croatia that deal with the education and training of assistance dogs is presented. It also described the positive interactions of assistance dogs and therapy dogs in social activities and participation in improving all functional and psychological outcomes of therapy and assistance for people with difficulties in motor movements or balance, health problems such as diabetes, epileptic seizures or other nonphysiological disorders and reactions, especially as support for people with psychiatric disorders and autism. From the presented thesis, we could conclude that assistance and therapy dogs are increasingly crucial in including numerous forms of the therapeutic and rehabilitative roles of new and existing users in their daily activities, raising the people's and their neighbours' quality of life.