Benefits of Pet Therapy for Our Emotional Wellbeing

The idea of getting a pet may have crossed your mind at least once in your life. Even if you are not a pet lover, you may have taken comfort in the fluffy, cuddly, and non-judgmental presence of a puppy or a kitten. Or you would rather bask in the calm energy of a horse, or be soothed by the excited movements of a hamster.

No matter the types of pets we prefer, we keep them as solace and friends. No wonder they can also help us heal in times of trouble, or why pet therapy has enjoyed such widespread growth and acceptance in recent years.

“But how can my dog help me heal when he can’t even use the stairs?” you may wonder. You may remember that time an aggressive dog snarled and chased you away.

With proper pet selection and training, however, these types of misbehaviors can be corrected. The most helpful traits are nurtured so that the dog truly becomes your companion in coping with a disabling condition or just overcoming a hard time.

Whether you’re considering a pet therapy program or simply intrigued by the benefits of pet therapy, one truth stands out: interacting with animals can profoundly affect our emotional well-being.

What is pet therapy?

In doctor’s speech, pet therapy refers to animal-assisted therapy (AAT) or animal-assisted activities (AAA), collectively known as animal therapy or animal-assisted interventions, where therapy animals are trained to assist in human healing. This innovative approach to healthcare has been gaining ground in the medical community.

Pet therapy involves using trained animals to help people with treatments and managing otherwise debilitating medical and psychological conditions.

The benefits range widely, from helping people go through difficult treatments to lifting moods, providing companionship, and helping them live independent lives. The animals are most often dogs but could also be horses or cats.

While dogs are the most common animal of choice for pet therapy, some cats are also willing to sit on strangers’ laps and get petted. Phantom at Hand in Paw Nursing Home is one example. Abner at Bayview Retirement Community also brings so much joy to the residents there.

Pet therapy strengthens the human-animal bond and addresses a variety of physical and mental issues. It offers comfort and support through non-judgmental companionship.

There are three types of pet therapies, summed up as follows:

• Service Dogs
• Therapy Dogs
• Emotional Support Animals

Service dogs vs. Therapy dogs vs. Emotional support animals (ESA)

Dog-assisted therapy has been found to offer significant benefits for individuals, including cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, those dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and stroke victims.

The bottom line is that the therapeutic approach of using trained dogs and other types of animals provides comfort, reduces stress, improves our emotional well-being, and has been shown to enhance the healing process and our overall quality of life.

These terms (Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs, Emotional Support Animals) and the therapies they refer to mainly differ in the pet’s training and the activities they support.

Dogs are the most common pets to be trained thanks to their inherent desire to please humans, but also their intelligence and mobility.

Another common term is ‘handler’. The handler is the person closest to the animal, able to direct it with commands and respond to its needs and reactions. A handler forms a team with the trained animal.

Depending on the type of activity, the handler is the person the animal supports or the person handling the animal while it helps others. A handler is not always the owner.

Here is how to differentiate between the three terms.

SERVICE DOG	THERAPY DOG	ESA
Participate in animal-assisted therapy.	Participate in animal-assisted activities.	Your home pet.
Formally trained in specific skills to help their handler with tasks.	Formally trained in obedience to provide comfort and companionship to other people.	Not formally trained nor tested.
Wear a vest that says ‘Service Dog – Do not pet’.	Wear a vest that says ‘Therapy dog – Ask to pet me’.	Wear an Emotional Support Animal vest.
When vested, they’re working.	When vested, they’re working.	Being vested doesn’t mean they’re working.
Public access is protected by law. The handler doesn’t have to show any document.	Public access by invitation only, also protected by law.	Public access only when allowed, even ESA-certified.
General public should never pet them.	General public may pet them by asking their handler.	Expect normal behaviors around a pet from the public.
Work anywhere that their handler goes, including flight cabins.	Work in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, etc.	Go anywhere that their owner goes but may be denied access.

Service dogs and therapy dogs are considered service animals. They go through extensive training to become who they are. When you see them with the vest on, they are working and need to focus on their job. Refrain from petting them without being invited to.

Service dog handlers never want you to pet the dog – petting a service dog when he or she is working can be as dangerous as texting while driving. The handler’s wellbeing relies on the dog’s ability to focus on the job, so letting the team go about their day without distraction is the best thing you can do around them.

You can be much more friendly around therapy dogs since they are trained to be petted. Again, it is always good to ask first – after all – the dog is still on the clock.

Therapy dogs, a crucial part of therapy pets, are trained to provide comfort and companionship in various settings, unlike service dogs or emotional support animals.

Both service dogs and therapy dogs undergo months of rigorous training and subsequent regular assessments to ensure they are in top shape for their duties. They also enjoy many public access rights while on the job.

Statistic: The National Institute of Mental Health reports that veterans with PTSD who participated in pet therapy experienced a 12% decrease in their symptoms, according to jamanetwork.

Emotional Support Animals (ESA)

Meanwhile, emotional support animals (ESA) are also home pets that can be certified by a psychiatrist as essential to their owner’s psychological well-being. However, they do not undergo any formal training to get certified, apart from whatever training the pet owner may provide.

This means they may not be as well-behaved and highly skilled as service animals. The certification process for ESA animals and the public access rights they enjoy are less substantial than the other types.

Horse therapy

Horse therapy, formally known as Equine Assisted Therapy, has helped veterans and children on the autistic spectrum build social skills, trust, and heal.

Horses are like dogs in their nonjudgmental and unbiased acceptance of who we are. Moreover, horses are sensitive creatures—they can recognize changes in their environment from far away, with an almost 360-degree vision coupled with keen intuition. They tune into the slightest changes in our physiological state, such as heart rates or muscle tension.

Hence, when you are next to a horse, the horse can sense your intention and emotional state, and he or she reacts accordingly.

Horses teach you about yourself.

Horses have amazing intuition. Horse trainers are convinced that horses can tell when you are lying. Perhaps this is why horse lovers are encouraged to connect with their bodies and tap into a horse’s ability to feel your emotional messages.

What Are the Benefits of Pet Therapy?

The benefits of pet therapy depend on the pets, their training (if any), and the person in need. Pets and service animals can benefit healthy people and those suffering from clinical conditions such as depression and agoraphobia.

Animal-assisted intervention involves using animals in therapy to improve people’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

The list of benefits from pet therapy is long and getting longer.

The most significant benefit is a person’s emotional bond with the animal, which can compensate for the lack of social connections or help the human cope with anxiety and loneliness.

Petting an animal helps our brains release hormones that make us feel better – such as serotonin, prolactin, and oxytocin – according to UCLA Health. In turn, this helps children with autism, OCD, ADHD, and Asperger’s regain focus and relax

A service dog can help someone with a disability manage their condition and live an independent life. By doing so, they can avoid relapses that may push them back into treatment.

They can also reduce dependencies on medications, side effects, caretakers, or family members. They are also great at alerting emergencies, such as:

• Medical alert dogs can detect epileptic seizures

• Diabetic alert dogs can detect high and low blood pressure

• PTSD dogs can detect adrenaline and anxiety

The benefits also come from cats and horses. Survivors of sexual assaults can regain control of their bodies through horse riding, and the frequency of a cat’s purr is known to relieve panic attacks and other ailments such as insomnia, nightmares, or night terrors.

Statistic: Studies have shown that therapy animals can reduce anxiety in children, with one study reporting a 24% reduction in anxiety levels after interacting with therapy dogs.

Here are some common places where animals have proved to bring much-needed assistance:

At the hospitals

Therapy dogs are great at helping patients at hospitals. Their tasks may include:

• Lower blood pressure for patients with high blood pressure.

• Encourage physical exercise, independent movement, and motor skills.

• Encourage patients to persevere with grueling treatments, such as cancer patients going through chemotherapy and radiation.

• Lift patients’ moods, especially children, during hospital stays. For example, PAC Reading is the Way Up, or Resnick Pups at UCLA Resnick Hospital.

• Decrease distress and pain, and boost endorphins that ultimately have the same effect on patients as painkillers do.

At schools/universities

Several dog-assisted reading programs have reaped success in elementary schools. The children read to the therapy dogs who provide an accepting, quiet, and attentive listening ear.

For example, the non-profit Intermountain Therapy Animals helped struggling readers learn to read: Young readers like Zac were too nervous to read to people, but he was comfortable reading to Emily, the therapy dog, every week. Emily was even trained to sneeze when Zac made a mistake so the handler could remind him to get it right.

Therapy dogs can comfort schoolchildren who find going to school daunting. Children with autism often feel a deep bond with animals more than they can relate to humans.

Another example is Ronan. He welcomed the students on the first day back at school after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Among the kids was a girl with Down Syndrome who was really struggling to cope with the aftermath. The handler told her that Ronan was excellent at keeping secrets, so she whispered her secret into his ears, and the burden lifted off her small shoulders.

Such relief has also been seen among university students during finals week.

In nursing homes

Therapy dog visits are known to brighten up the mood in nursing homes. They can help the residents regain social interaction with the dog as an icebreaker.

For veterans

For veterans with PTSD, teaming up with a service dog is the way for them to live their lives with full functionality and dignity. For example, after Gordon had his home dog Sammy trained as a service dog, he could work up the courage to go to places he had been too scared to go. Sammy also interrupted him while he was having flashbacks.

For another veteran, the most valuable aid his dog provided was the ability to sense his mood changes before he himself realized it. There were times she nudged him, licked his face and ears, or put her nose on his shoulder, and broke the cycle of self-destructive thoughts, got him out of his head, and focused on making sure she was okay.

For people with disabilities

Service dogs help people with disabilities live independent lives. Service dogs can do things that no other medication or medical device can do, such as:

• find keys, phone
• retrieve items from the fridge
• turn lights on and off
• help humans get undressed (shoes and socks)
• alert and interrupt self-destructive behaviors such as hair-pulling, nail-biting, scratching
• allow people to ground themselves at the moment or as a prompt for a coping mechanism (take medication, take a moment to meditate)
• wake people from nightmares

Here are a few more examples of service dogs providing invaluable aid to their handlers:

Mikayla and Ferriss:

Ferris, the service dog, can discern Mikayla’s sleep seizures from her nighttime movements and press a canine alert button to call for help.

Jason and Harper:

Jason had suffered from crippling agoraphobia until his service dog Harper helped him go out for the first time after 1.5 years. Two weeks later, he took his daughter to Disneyland.

Jocelynn & Lulu:

Being deaf, Jocelynn relies on Lulu to alert her to emergencies like smoke alarms.

In the courtroom

Therapy dogs are known to help crime victims cope with the aftermath of abuse. Child victims often feel nervous and tongue-tied when having to retell their sexual traumas in the courtroom. Laying at their feet in the witness box, sight unseen, Dozer or Lupe would nudge the victim on the leg, and the child started to pet him, relax, and tell his story. The children said they could not have made it through the process without the dogs.

Are there any risks in pet therapy?

Allergies

What should you do when you need a service dog but have asthma or an allergy?

Fur is often the cause of allergies, so it is better to choose breeds with low-maintenance coats, such as Labradoodles and Poodles. Look for hypoallergenic dogs that do not shed a lot of fur, but make sure they are intelligent and loyal enough to receive training.

Misbehaviors

The risk of misbehavior depends on how well-trained your therapy pet is. It is a low risk for assistance dogs, thanks to their intensive vetting process, but a high risk for ESA pets since most of them are trained at home by their owners, if at all.

Several triggers could set off a pet in public areas: loud vehicle noises, sudden movements, crowds, awkward spaces, a barrage of smells, food, and toxic substances, strange surfaces and terrains, other animals, etc. Therefore, ensure your ESA pets are well-prepared to go out with you. Do not let it become a public danger.

Public reactions and distractions

Distractions are a constant problem, even for a well-trained service dog. Potential risks could come from other people and the environment.

Distractions could be detrimental to both the dog and its handler. For example, the dog could be focusing on a difficult task, such as helping her blind handler go downstairs, that a small stroke on the back could make her turn around, causing her handler to miss a step, thereby sending both herself and her handler tumbling downstairs and got injured.

Some people do ask first before petting the dog. However, the handler must constantly deny their requests and deal with the negative responses, making a short errand a harried experience. Animal-assisted intervention involves using animals as a part of therapy to improve people’s physical, emotional, or mental well-being.

Other unhelpful public reactions include:

• questions
• pointing
• untrained pets
• taking pictures without consent
• people asking you to leave

What to do around a service dog team

If you do not need a service dog, do not become part of the problem.

Here are some good behaviors for humans around a service dog team as a polite and aware member of the public:

• do not pet the dog (including feeding, pointing, talking, touching, or any other interaction)
• do not take pictures
• keep your pet on a leash and away from the dog
• respect their rights – service dogs enjoy the same public access and service as their handlers
• do not separate the handler from the dog
• do not ask questions or make assumptions about the handler’s disability

How to get a therapy pet

There is a huge difference between getting a service animal and getting an Emotional Support Animal. As explained above, service dogs and therapy dogs are working animals – they require formal training before they can help you.

Emotional Support animals are your home pets. You are responsible for their training, and they can be animals other than dogs. Getting an Emotional Support Animal (ESA) letter will make it easier to take your pet with you in public, but your ESA pet does not enjoy the same rights as service animals.

How to get a service dog or a therapy dog

Since a service dog is trained to help someone with a disability, only people with genuine needs can get one, by consulting their doctors.

Getting a therapy dog means you are willing to work as a team with your dog. As a dog-handler team, you will go to places in need, like hospitals, schools, and nursing homes, and provide much-needed fluffy comfort to the people there. You should have a desire and training to help some of the most vulnerable populations.

Here are the options for training a service or therapy dog:

• self-training
• adopt a trained dog from an organization
• hire a private dog trainer
• work with a group or organization that holds group classes, online training, and private support.

Therapy dogs and service dogs go through the same puppy classes for about six months. Then, their training diverges into obedience for therapy dogs and specific tasks for service dogs.

With any of these options, you also need to train as a handler. Like learning to drive, you need to get a good grasp of the laws regarding your service dog (such as the Americans with Disability Act, and the Fair Housing Act).

Be prepared that the public, including business owners, aren’t very aware of these laws, so you will have to feel comfortable explaining your rights when confronted with their complaints and demands.

How to begin? First, you need to choose a puppy with the right temperament.

How to choose a puppy with the right temperament

Go for puppies who:

• love attention
• crave contact with strangers
• don’t mind unfamiliar and uncomfortable settings

Use the Volhard Temperament Testing method – ten trials to test whether the puppy is right for you. The test scores indicate the puppy’s receptivity to training and suitability for certain homes and handlers.

The most common working dog breeds are Golden Retrievers and Labradors, thanks to their loyalty and intelligence; Corgis, German Shepherds, and Scottish Terriers are also good candidates. Also consider the mixed breeds such as Golden Doodles, Labrador Retrievers, etc.

How to self-train your service dog

This is the cheapest way to train your dog, spending as little as needed for upkeep.

The cons are you have to learn many things on your own. Self-training takes a lot of time without any guidance or community. However, the low financial burden means many people are motivated enough to try, such as Beth, who trained her own service dog to help her with balance issues. She joined Facebook groups, asked questions, and worked at it every day.

Check out tips from these dog trainers:

• Lisa Gallegos
• Nate Schoemer
• DoggyU

Adopt a trained service dog or work with a private trainer

You do not have to do much work, but the waiting list is two to five years long. Also, the costs range from 20,000 to 30,000 USD.

Some dog training academies:

• Doggie Do Good
• Diggity Dogs

A professional private trainer can help you pick a suitable puppy, provide fully custom training for your needs, and help you pass all the assessments. However, it could cost thousands of dollars over time.

Work with an organization to train your own service dog

You will enjoy the support of a community that provides an unbiased assessment that helps build your confidence in going out with your dog.

How to choose the best organization? The question is, which one is the most convenient for you? You and your puppy will need to spend a lot of time there, so start with a search on the local dog training non-profits.

Case study: Bri trained Dallas – her own Golden Doodle service dog with a combination of group and private classes. She trained with Dallas in local puppy classes for about six months, then hired a private trainer out of town to train specific skills.

How to professionally train your service dog or therapy dog

Your puppy goes through roughly 18 months of training starting at six months old. If it passes its exams, it can work as a service animal.

Two tests your dog needs to pass:

• public access test
• psychiatric tasks specific to the handler OR Therapy dog skills

Public access test:

• temperament test
• basic commands: heel, sit, down, stay, leave it
• distractions: other animals, strollers, etc.
• calmness in entering and exiting buildings and vehicles
• potty training

Here is an example of a public access test.

Puppy classes train both service and therapy dogs in these skills for about six months. Then, service dogs would learn specific tasks to help their handler, while therapy dogs would learn skills to provide comfort to people in need.

Trainers take the dogs to all sorts of public places to train their focus and familiarity: malls, parks, bus stations, beaches, farms, airport security, movie theaters, churches, parades, etc.

Most common tasks for service dogs:

• Deep Pressure Therapy (DPT) to ease tension
• Medication reminder and retrieval
• Barrier: help you deal with crowds
• Graceful (emergency) exit: allow you to leave a group
• Interruption: night terrors, self-harm, panic attacks

Common skills for therapy dogs:

• Gentle walking on a leash
• Approach a stranger
• Approach someone with a walker or in a wheelchair, around medical equipment
• Reactions to different kinds of touching and hand movements
• Five-second hug
• Remain calm around other animals and food, or under a looming stare
• Handling large, noisy crowds
• Gentle treat eating
• Stay calm in an elevator and going up and down stairs

Depending on your jurisdiction, working dogs need to get re-certified after a few years of working. For example, Zazu took a re-certification exam in San Francisco after four years of working as a therapy dog.

How to get an Emotional Support Animal (ESA) letter for your pet

The above sections make clear that an Emotional Support Animal (ESA) is very different from a service animal (service dog or therapy dog). The vast differences result from the animals’ training and service purposes. Also, these training courses mainly involve dogs, while an ESA pet can be any animal you keep cats, lizards, birds, rabbits, hamsters, etc.

Because of such differences, an ESA pet can get certified much faster and enjoy fewer public access rights compared to service animals.

Meanwhile, ESAs and service animals enjoy the same rights under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). This means you can keep your ESA-certified pets even if your residence has a no-pet rule in effect. Your landlords are required to accommodate your ESAs with no extra fees.

Steps to get an ESA letter for your pet:

1. Fill out an online questionnaire with a legitimate organization, such as CertaPet
2. Talk to a mental health professional about how the pet is vital to your emotional wellbeing
3. Receive the ESA letter (signed and dated, with the mental health professional’s license number, date, and place of issue)

The validity is one year. You will have to get a new letter every year.

Please note that there is no need to register your pet on any registry site. An ESA letter from a licensed mental health professional is all you need to have your pet qualified under the FHA.

Good practice for handling ESA pets in public

ESA pets are not working animals. In many places, including flights, they are treated just like any other pets. That means, if your pet exceeded the size limit when flying, they would have to go in the cargo, which can be a terrifying experience for them.

The Air Carrier Access Act applies to your ESAs when flying, but also checks the airline’s guidelines before flying. Here is how to fly with your pet from a flight captain. Devon flew with her dog Willo several times, so check out her tips on good flying practice.

The assistance dogs are well trained to deal with issues arising in public – they are safe for the public. Meanwhile, your ESA pets are not trained to deal with the stressors and threats of public areas. No matter how comfortable they are at home, be mindful when going out with them, because they may distract a working dog on duty, potentially causing dangers to both the handler and the dog.

Pet and animal-assisted therapy for emotional wellbeing

The bonds between humans and animals are ancient. Going beyond practical reasons of catching vermin and retrieving game, the bonds have inspired heartwarming stories of companionship, loyalty, and reunion. Thus, it is an easy leap of intuition to train them to help humans heal and grow.

Pet therapy is best used to help our most vulnerable populations – from the very young to the very old. Its increasing popularity indicates a dire need for alternative healing methods. Before we depend on advanced but hard-to-understand technologies, let’s appreciate the intuitive and scientific approach of enlisting the amazing abilities of the animals living with us.

Bottom Line

As pet and animal-assisted therapy programs evolve, they offer promising alternatives for enhancing emotional and physical well-being across diverse populations. These programs utilize the therapeutic benefits of animal interactions to alleviate stress, reduce anxiety, and provide comfort and companionship.

By incorporating trained therapy animals into various settings such as hospitals, schools, and nursing homes, pet therapy can improve mood, promote healing, and foster social connections, benefiting individuals of all ages and backgrounds.

Wellness Tips

The Human-Animal Bond: It has been well established that the human-animal bond, even if it comes from just regularly petting our pets, can have a profound calming effect, lowering your blood pressure and positively impacting your cardiovascular health. The human-animal bond has also been shown to help people suffering from mental health issues such as anxiety, panic disorder, and depression.[/WellnesTip]

Value of Pet Therapy Programs: Pet therapy programs not only provide a comforting human-animal connection but have also been shown to improve a person’s cognitive functioning. Interacting with pet therapy animals can help stimulate cognitive function, including memory, attention, and problem-solving skills. Also, pet therapy programs can provide a non-threatening environment for people with speech and communication disorders to learn and practice communication skills.[/WellnesTip]

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