Source: Courtesy of VancouverEcoVillage
Why is there a dearth of therapy dogs? This is a question that has bothered me for a long time. The usefulness of therapy dogs has been well documented. For example, the newest edition of the Handbook on Animal Assisted Therapy (senior editor Aubrey Fine) presents over 500 pages of material documenting hundreds of studies that have shown the usefulness of therapy dogs over a broad spectrum of psychological problems.
Therapy dogs have been proven to be useful in dealing with emotional issues that range from severe, such as suicidal depression, and PTSD, to more moderate emotional difficulties, such as pre-examination stress in university students. Certainly in North America, there are many therapy dog associations, that are willing to provide therapy dogs to help lower the stress levels in emotionally vulnerable individuals, but such groups depend upon volunteers who bring their dogs to therapy sessions, and, unfortunately, they just can’t find enough of them.
Why Few Dogs Are Volunteered as Therapy Dogs
One reason might simply be that volunteering to have your dog used in therapy sessions is a time commitment, and most dogs need some training and often some official certification to be used in such programs. But there is another, perhaps more fundamental, reason, and that is hesitancy on the part of dog owners out of concern for the welfare of their pets. It is a fact that some people firmly believe that having dogs associated with people experiencing tension and emotional turmoil, is actually stressful and unpleasant for the therapy dog himself.
Are Therapy Dogs Abused?
I was reminded of the depth of feeling that certain people have for this issue when I was speaking with a woman who is the deputy director of a small animal shelter here in Canada. She told me that when people come to her shelter to adopt a dog they must fill out a questionnaire. One of the items in that questionnaire involves what the dog might be expected to do if it is adopted by that person. Would the dog be more than a pet? She told me that if the person indicated that the dog was going to be used as a therapy dog, her shelter would refuse to allow them to adopt a dog.
She explained that “compelling a dog to engage in therapy sessions is a form of animal abuse. The dog is required to associate with people who may be in an unstable emotional state and who may be giving off all sorts of negative vibes. You know that dogs can read human emotions and they are affected by them. Nonetheless, they are being forced to interact with individuals who are broadcasting their negative emotional state, and even worse, the dogs are expected to allow such people to touch them.
“Especially in group settings, the dogs may find themselves in unfamiliar environments, with strange apparatus around them such as wheelchairs, crutches, and walkers. Also, they are surrounded by lots of strangers, all talking and demanding attention from the dog. What dog would like to be in such a situation? As far as we’re concerned this is a case of animal abuse.”
A New Study
I have heard such arguments before, and have always suspected that such beliefs might be preventing people from allowing their dogs to engage in animal-assisted therapies. There have been some studies that have looked at the issue of whether therapy dogs are being stressed or presented with a situation that is emotionally harmful to them, and I know of no data that confirms that such is the case.
I made that argument to the woman and then told her about the most recent study on this issue. The lead researcher was Kohoutková Kateřina at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague in the Czech Republic. It was not a particularly large study, involving 15 dogs with long-term working experience involving animal-assisted interventions but it did have a large number of careful measures involving hormonal tests and observations of behavior.
Measuring Stress in Therapy Dogs
These researchers used the amount of the stress hormone, cortisol, as an indicator of the emotional state of the dogs. The amount of corticosteroid present is an accepted measure of stress, tension, and anxiety in humans as well as dogs. Samples were collected using a simple cotton swab to gather some of the dogs’ saliva. Samples were taken on four working days (where the dogs participated in a regular therapy session) and on four control days (where there was no therapy session). It is important to note that on control days the measures were taken at the same time of the day that they would be acquired on therapy days. Three measures were taken each time, one before therapy, one immediately after, and the last one 30 minutes after therapy.
In addition, the dog handlers were trained to look for 25 specific behaviors during the therapy sessions and to tabulate them. These behaviors could be divided into friendly and sociable behaviors, or behaviors indicating moderate or high stress.
Are Therapy Dogs Experiencing Stress During Therapy Sessions?
The results are quite straightforward. Analysis of the stress hormones indicated that there was no difference in the stress levels that the dogs experienced on therapy days versus non-therapy days. There was no rise in the corticosteroid level as a consequence of engaging in the therapy session or later on.
The observational analysis of the dogs’ behaviors during actual therapy sessions also indicated no consequential signs of stress. About 81 percent of all recorded behaviors were friendly and positive, suggesting that the dogs were enjoying their therapy sessions. Out of the many behavioral observations recorded only 3 percent fit the researcher’s high-stress classification. The most common was yawning, followed by a few instances of the ears slicked down. I believe, based on the research published in my book How to Speak Dog that these researchers were being very conservative in their assessments, since although these are stress signals, they are generally taken to be signs of a very modest amount of stress, rather than high stress. Nonetheless, any such stress signs were exceedingly rare, and the overwhelming number of responses observed were friendly, comfortable, and sociable.
The authors of the study concluded, “Based on the results, it can be concluded that animal-assisted intervention does not represent a significant stress load for the tested dogs. They perceive the working days as any other normal day, enjoy the work, and take pleasure in it.”
A Closing Note
Let me just end with an anecdotal observation that seems to confirm the outcome of this research. Most of my dogs have been therapy dogs, working in group sessions, often with seniors. When I bring out their therapy dog harnesses before a session, they dance around, with tails wagging, much the way that they do when they are pleasantly excited in anticipation of a walk or playtime. Participating in therapy sessions seems to be one of the highlights of their week.
Copyright SC Psychological Enterprises Ltd. May not be reprinted or reposted without permission.