My beloved grandmother helped raise me and always was a big part of my life. Seeing her personality and self erode away due to Alzheimer’s disease was horrifying. Then, for a number of years she languished in a near comatose state at a nursing home until she died in 2002. Just prior to her slipping into this abyss, she was unable to communicate or comprehend the world around her—or even recognize her loved ones—and consistently displayed flat affect. Fortunately, she still could be assisted out of bed, dressed and perhaps even be guided on a walk around the facility. As Easter approached, I visited her and we slowly and silently ambled down the hall. Suddenly, we were approached by a most curious interloper—a very friendly and gigantic Great Dane made up to be the Easter Bunny—including tall bunny ears and fluffy tail! This bizarre creature made quite an impact on my grandmother. For a moment her flat affect vanished. She laughed and laughed with delight and petted the dog. The dog broke through the vast wasteland of my grandmother’s dementia, uncovering parts of her brain which still retained and could express bits of her personality, including her lifelong love for pets. As that gigantic friendly dog Great Dane continued wandering past us down the hall, I was grateful for that wonderful moment in which I felt connection to my grandmother once again. That was also my first significant contact with a therapy dog.
For more than three decades I have attempted to identify insights and techniques which can be effectively utilized to assist my patients to make constructive changes, generate healing and live better lives. I became adept in integrating theology and psychology in order to assist patients to use their own religious and spiritual values as resources for healing. I became proficient in working with relational systems so that effective interventions could be made in even the most difficult and seemingly intractable of situations.
Many years ago I learned that resistance is not opposed to therapy. Rather, therapy is in fact the management of patient resistance. Change is difficult and frightening. It is much easier to deny that a problem exists, relinquish responsibility and blame others or decline opportunities to actually make constructive changes.
For generations, health care professionals have noted the encouraging therapeutic effects of animal companionship. An animal's warm and playful presence can be comforting and help relieve stress, lower blood pressure, and raise spirits. It has only been in the last half of the twentieth century that researchers have noted the effectiveness in using dogs and other animals in clinical settings and research has begun to address on the use of animals in clinical settings. Animal Assisted Activities (AAA) involve volunteers who take their pets to visit hospitals, nursing homes, day care programs, and many other types of facilities for the purpose of being petted and socializing with the residents, patients or clients. While the term “Therapy Dog” is often popularly assumed to refer to a dog trained to provide affection and comfort to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, mental institutions, schools, and stressful situations such as disaster areas, therapy dogs, and other animals, are increasingly being used by health care professionals. Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) involves health care professionals who use their own animal or animals, or work in partnership with a volunteer and the volunteer's pet, using the pet as a treatment modality in conjunction with written treatment plans involving specific treatment goals as well as behaviorally measurable and documented outcomes.
The concept of a “Therapy Dog” is often attributed to Elaine Smith, an American who worked as a registered nurse for a time in England. Smith noticed how well patients responded to visits by a certain chaplain and his canine companion, a Golden Retriever. Upon returning to the United States in 1976, Smith started a program for training dogs to visit institutions. A Therapy Dog's primary job is to allow unfamiliar people to make physical contact with him and to enjoy that contact. Therapy Dogs have been enlisted to help children overcome speech and emotional disorders. Children particularly enjoy hugging animals. However, adults usually also enjoy simply petting the dog. The dog might need to be lifted onto, or climb onto, an invalid's lap or bed and sit or lie comfortably there. Many dogs add to the visiting experience by performing small tricks for their audiences or by playing carefully structured games. Cindy Ehlers of Eugene, Oregon took her Husky dog, Bear, to visit with students and others traumatized by the 1998 shootings at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon and the violence in 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Tracy Roberts brings her two Australian Shepherd dogs, Lucy and Dottie, to school to act as teacher's aides in the fourth and fifth grade classes at the Canterbury Episcopal School in DeSoto, Texas. Lucy and Dottie are reported to be a comfort to the kids and a welcome relief from the stress of school.
Dena Carselowey and her Labrador Retriever, Buggs, are "co-therapists" at Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas. Each of these dogs provides unconditional acceptance the moment the student enters the classroom or the counselor's office. Often the students will come to see the dog and stay to talk to the counselor while they pet and play with the dogs. When animals are used with the school counselor, the students often use the dog as an excuse to go see the counselor. These animals enable the counselor to interact with many more students than would normally be the case.
The integration of animal-assisted therapy into clinical psychology was first credited in 1962 to the child psychologist, Boris Levinson, with his paper published in Mental Hygiene, "The dog as a 'co therapist'." Levinson discovered he could make significant progress with a disturbed child when Levinson's dog, Jingles, attended therapy sessions. He went on to find that many children who were withdrawn and uncommunicative would interact positively with the dog (Levinson, 1969).
The effectiveness of AAT and AAA inaugurated a dramatic rise in their popularity and they are now being increasingly used in many school, hospital and counseling settings. Research has demonstrated that the presence of an animal in therapy has been found to lower anxiety and motivate participation in therapy (Fine, 2000). In particular, the presence of the animal can facilitate a trust-building bond between therapist and patient (Gammonley, et al., 2000). The presence of animals in counseling sessions helps relieve stress and anxiety about therapy and facilitates an atmosphere of trust, nurturance, and relationship building. Interacting with the animal can be entertaining and fun!
The animal may help patients get in touch with their feelings. The therapy animal is a non-judgmental companion in the process of learning and development. Talking to the animal while the therapist listens may sometimes be easier than talking directly to the therapist about very difficult personal issues. Sharing feelings with or about the animal can initiate the emotional sharing process between therapist and patient. For the patient, the animal is often seen as a friend and ally, thus presenting a safe atmosphere for sharing. The animal offers nurturance through a presentation of unconditional acceptance and interaction. A patient’s experience in interacting with an animal can provide knowledge about boundaries and limit setting by observing and imitating the therapist-animal interactions. Animals actually help individuals focus on a task or issue because of their interest in interacting with the animal.
While the demand for Therapy Dogs has continued to grow, the concepts of AAT and AAA have now expanded to include other species, including therapy cats, therapy rabbits and therapy birds. There are many different types of therapy animals. The most common are dogs, cats, and horses. Farm animals can be therapeutic as well as smaller or less common types of animals, such as, rabbits, birds, fish, hamsters, and even llamas. Each of these animals has specific skills and abilities to contribute to the therapeutic process. Since AAT is not a specific style of therapy such as Cognitive-Behavioral (CBT) or Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), AAT and AAA are useful modalities that are easily incorporated into whatever professional style of therapy therapists already use. Research indicates using dogs as "co-therapists" can benefit clinical outcome with children, adolescents and adults, and can be integrated into individual, couple, family or group therapy with a very wide range of age groups and individuals with varying ability.
Common mental health treatment goals in AAT are to: (1) The reduction of anxiety; (2) The brightening of affect and mood, and the lessening of depression; (3) Providing pleasure and affection;(4) Improving self-esteem and a sense of self worth; (5) Providing opportunities to feel valued and competent; (6) Reducing isolation, boredom and loneliness; (7) Enhancing socialization; (8) Improving communication skills; (9) Improving memory and recall; (10) Assisting in the healing of grief and loss; (11) Improving reality testing; (12) Improving cooperation and problem-solving skills; (13) Increasing the ability to concentrate, maintain focus and attention; (14) Decreasing manipulative behaviors; (15) Enhancing the expression of feelings; (16) Reducing angry and abusive behavior; (17) Improving the ability to trust; and (18) Learning appropriate modes of touch (Gammonley, et al., 2000).
Common AAT mental health treatment interventions which may assist patients to meet the goals listed above include: (1) Engage in petting and/or playing with the animal and other types of appropriate interactions; (2) Receive affection and acceptance from the animal and give appropriate affection and acceptance back to the animal as well; (3) Learn about the animal;(4) Learn other information about the animal (breed, history, etc.);(5) Remember and repeat information about the animal to others; (6) Reminisce about this particular animal or past animals and/or pets; (7) Observe and discuss the animal's response to human behavior; (8) Discuss how animals may feel in certain situations; (9) Interpret animal behavior as it happens; (10) Generalize animal behavior to human circumstances; (11) Learn gentle ways to handle animals; (12) Follow a sequence of instructions with the animal; (13) Practice the proper handling, care, grooming and/or feeding of the specific animal; (14) Practice teaching the animal something new; (15) Take the animal for a supervised walk, etc.
Many different types of animals participate in both AAA and AAT. Good therapy animals come in any size, sex, breed or mix of breeds. They need to like people, be controllable, be trained, well mannered, and of the utmost stable personality. The animal's ability to calmly accept unusual or new circumstances is one of many keys to a good therapy animal. Not every animal will like doing this activity. They can be exposed to the activity, taught specific maneuvers and behaviors for the activity and still not enjoy the activity. Animals should not be forced to do an activity they dislike; it creates too much stress for them. The animal handler must be able to communicate with his/her animal in a gentle, positive manner; recognize their animal's particular signs of stress; and know how to help their animal.
Schwartzerd
After carefully examining numerous variables with regard to using a therapy dog in my own practice, I concluded that a male Labrador retriever would likely be an good choice. I felt it was best to get a puppy so that he could grow up around, and so be comfortable with the diverse ages and characteristics of the adults, adolescents and children who are my patients. Another high priority is proper obedience training so he would be a well disciplined dog.
Labrador Retrievers, also known as “Labradors” or “Labs” are the most popular breed of dog in the United States as well as around the globe. Labs are one of several breeds of retrievers, a type of gun dog or hunting dog. Their breed characteristics include webbed paws for swimming, useful for the breed's original purpose of retrieving fishing nets in Labrador. Because of their subsequent use as hunting companions, they were also called retrievers. Labs typically are friendly with strangers and good with young children. Labs are also very intelligent, loving, kind, compassionate and athletic. They love to swim, play catch and retrieve games. They are also very loyal and eager to please their masters. Labs are widely used by police and other official bodies for their detection and working abilities. Labs come in three colors: black, yellow and chocolate.
Schwartzerd is a black Labrador retriever born in Alabama on March 12, 2010. Schwartzerd's mother, Buttercup, was a young yellow Labrador retriever who was rescued in rural Alabama. She was to be spayed and placed up for adoption. Then it was discovered she was pregnant, so she was allowed to have her litter of three black males, three yellow and one chocolate female. Buttercup and her pups received excellent care in the shelter and remained together until the pups were brought to Pennsylvania for adoption. They arrived in Pennsylvania on May 15, which was the same day I inadvertently became aware that Schwartzerd was available for adoption. My kids and I picked him up on May 16, and he went with me to my office the very next day.
While therapy dogs may come in all sizes and breeds, the most important aspect of a therapy dog is temperament. Schwartzerd is very even tempered and friendly. A good therapy dog must be friendly, patient, confident, at ease in all situations, and gentle. Therapy dogs must enjoy human contact and be content to be petted and handled, sometimes clumsily. Schwartzerd loves being with people and plays well with children of all ages, adolescents and adults. He also likes meeting new people. He also likes to run and play, and has many toys. But keep an eye on him, because as a puppy he likes to chew on everything if he gets the opportunity.
Schwartzerd has already had a tremendously positive therapeutic effect on numerous children, adolescents and adults—reducing anxiety, raising spirits, building bridges and helping people to put their lives and concerns in perspective.
Schwartzerd
Schwartzerd with a friend.
Angel
Angel
Angel is a five year old brown due (female) Mini Rex Rabbit. The Standard Rex Rabbit buck weighs 7.5–9.5 pounds, and does weigh 8–10.5 pounds. The Rex “commercial breed” is also known as the "Velveteen" rabbit, and is distinguished by its specific velvet-like fur that is often used to substitute for the use of other animals in fur coats. for its incredibly soft fur. Rex fur has shortened guard hairs. The resulting coat is short and very dense, and is what would be called undercoat on a normal furred rabbit. They are full of personality. Standard Rexes have been used for their fur and meat production. Since 1985, the breeding of Rexes for fur has almost stopped because it was determined that larger animals have fur which is just as soft. Rexes are prolific rabbits having large litters with odd numbers of kits, often numbering nine or more. They are known as good mothers and are used as foster mothers for other rabbit breeds.
Mini Rex bucks weigh 4 ¼ pounds and does weigh 4 1/2 pounds. The Mini Rex was derived from the Standard Rex breed and the Netherland Dwarf. Its fur has a plush feel like velour, which offers a distinct springy resistance to the touch, like the standard Rex. They are also one of the easiest to breed of the compact type rabbits, and are very good mothers. Mini Rexes excel in the sport of Rabbit Hopping.
Unlike Schwartzerd, who is much more active, Angel prefers to sit on someone’s lap, have her soft fur petted and her long ears stroked. She also likes to hop around the office. But keep an eye on her as she likes to chew on the woodwork—and even wires—if she gets the opportunity.
