The volunteers all describe it the same way. When they walk into a hospital, a nursing home or a school, everyone’s eyes light up at the sight of a therapy dog. It doesn’t matter if it is the patient being visited or the staff – everyone smiles.
Animal assisted therapy, once rare and met with opposition as something unproven that would only bring germs into hospitals, is gaining traction. Many hospitals and nursing homes now have animal therapy programs in place, including at the Mayo Clinic, despite little evidence into the impact on patients in the long term.
“In the area of therapy animals, practice is far outpacing research. People think it works and like the idea of it, so they do it,” explains Maggie O’Haire, assistant professor of human-animal interaction at Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine.
One challenge as the practice has become more widespread has been explaining how exactly it works. “Positive changes from animal-assisted intervention are varied and there is no single pathway that has yet been identified,” says O’Haire.
There are a number of theories as to why it works, however.
“One is the biophilia hypothesis – essentially that humans have an innate propensity to connect with other living things,” says Sandra Barker, professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University and director of the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at the university. Another is the social support theory – the idea that therapy animals provide a form of nonjudgmental support.
In the past ten years, animal assisted therapy, mostly conducted by nonprofit organizations staffed by volunteers, has expanded far beyond a visit to the surgery recovery room and cancer treatment center. Today, programs exist that provide animals who assist with physical therapy, help tutor children in reading and provide comfort in settings as disparate as disaster zones and university campuses.
While research on the subject still has a long way to go, the idea that animals are good for our health has been around for some time. There are cases of doctors trying to incorporate animals into psychiatric settings as far back as the 1700s, to try to calm patients and improve their quality of life. More recently, studies have shown that having a pet around can lower blood pressure, and the American Heart Association has stated that owning a dog may even lower the risk of heart disease.
Dogs don’t just make us calmer, some studies have shown that they also make us happier. Research has shown that just petting a dog for a few minutes can raise levels of hormones that make us feel better.
Nancy George-Michalson is the director of programs and education at New York Therapy Animals, an organization that sends animals and their human volunteers into hospitals, schools and other settings.
New York Therapy Animals is part of a program called Reading Education Assistance Dogs. Instead of having a child who may be struggling with reading to try to sound out words for a human tutor, the children read stories to a visiting dog, who sits patiently and listens, George-Michalson explains. The kids get so excited by the idea of reading to a dog that they often practice reading their chosen book before the dog’s arrival so they can do a better job, says Bridgette McElroy, a teacher whose East Harlem school participates in the program.
The dog never gets frustrated if a child struggles to sound something out. No matter how slowly and with how much stumbling the story is read, the dog is happy to be there, providing both motivation for reading and a nonjudgmental listener.
Anecdotal evidence like this in support of animal therapy is constantly growing. George-Michalson remembers a particular resident at a nursing home where she and her peach-colored toy poodle, Callie, volunteered. The nursing home resident was a 99-year-old woman who did not have many visitors. Every week before George-Michalson and her dog arrived, the woman would ask for her walker and have someone help her down to the lobby so she could see Callie twirl and dance on the lobby carpet when they entered. Not only did the visits cheer the woman up, but seeing Callie’s twirling motivated her to keep up her mobility by walking down to the lobby each week.
Getting patients to move is a common theme with therapy animals. Sitting in a sterile hospital room, going through the same motions every day with a physical therapist can be unmotivating. Rachel McPherson, founder and president of The Good Dog Foundation, remembers a particular patient at a hospital where she and her Pomeranian, Fidel, volunteered. The man was recovering from a stroke and needed to regain mobility in his hands. So Fidel would jump into his lap with a ball. The man would try to take the ball and throw it for Fidel to chase after.
At first Fidel had to put the ball into his hand, and it would drop to the floor as he could not grasp it firmly enough, but Fidel never minded. He would jump off the bed, pick up the ball and happily bring it right back to the man in his bed. Week after week, the man and Fidel would play their game until the man regained enough mobility in his hand and shoulder to hold the ball and pet and brush Fidel.
Animal assisted therapy has also been gaining traction at disaster sites. The Good Dog Foundation sent volunteers out during 9/11 and Katrina as well as the Boston Marathon bombing. When something so horrific occurs, people often are unable to immediately process it and speak to a therapist, explains McPherson. At that initial moment of trauma, a lick on the cheek is the most people can handle, she explains. New York Therapy Animals sent volunteers to help Fema staff cope during hurricane Sandy. George-Michalson vividly recalls how one of the Fema workers put his arms around a Golden Retriever and started sobbing into its fur. “The dogs offer this unconditional love, and seeing a man bending over a dog and sobbing is extraordinary” she says.
The stories can sometimes be truly heartbreaking. Barker remembers a mother whose daughter had died thanking her for bringing a therapy dog to visit the child before she passed away. That visit from the therapy dog was the last time the mother had seen her child smile, and it brought her some measure of comfort to have seen her daughter happy during her last moments.
Despite the stories and long history of the human bond with companion animals, it was only recently that hospitals started to allow therapy animals on their floors. When McPherson started The Good Dog Foundation 18 years ago, it was still illegal in New York to bring an animal into a hospital, and she worked hard to help change that law. Now most hospitals in New York City allow therapy animals. Some hospitals have even started to allow patients to bring their own pets from home for a visit.
McPherson hopes that the increase in interest in animal assisted therapy will bring with it some standardization to the many programs that now exist. The Good Dog Foundation is consulting with the NIH to try to create standards for animal therapy that can be applied across volunteer organizations. Standardization of training is one step in a process that she hopes will end with insurance reimbursement for animal assisted therapy, allowing it to become even more commonplace.
Even without standardization and despite variability in training, the requirements to become a therapy dog are steep. While any breed or mutt can be a therapy dog, a certain kind of personality is required. “Visiting unfamiliar people in unfamiliar settings requires a well-trained, healthy dog, with a positive temperament and good manners,” says Barker.
After a dog is chosen based on its easy personality and good behavior, it must go through an extensive training program to be a therapy dog and pass a test. The dog has to not just be trained to always follow commands, but to also learn things like how to walk around medical equipment at a hospital so it can be safe in any setting. At New York Therapy Animals, dogs and their handlers go through a six-week program. At the Good Dog Foundation, the dogs and handlers go through 11 classes before they graduate.
While dogs will never replace therapists and teachers, O’Haire hopes to see animal assisted therapy as an increasingly common compliment to existing mental health practices. The benefit from animal assisted therapy seems to be the same regardless of the person’s background. Barker has found in her research that there is no difference in benefit from animal assisted therapy for people who do or don’t own pets, and that the impact is universal, whatever someone’s race or background.
As it turns out, a cold wet nose and a fuzzy face make just about all of us smile. Or, as an interpreter at the 9/11 site told McPherson when she was volunteering there with Fidel: “I don’t need to be here with the dog, because the dog is complete love, and that is international.”
