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 pets we prefer, we keep them as solace and friends. No wonder they can also help us heal in pet therapy.

“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 selection and training, however, these misbehaviors can be corrected, the most helpful traits are nurtured so that they truly become your companion in coping with a disabling condition, or just overcoming a hard time.

What is pet therapy?

In doctor’s speech, pet therapy refers to animal-assisted therapy (AAT) or animal-assisted activities (AAA). This is an innovative approach to healthcare that has been gaining ground in the medical community. Pet therapy involves using trained animals to help people with treatments, healing, and managing otherwise debilitating medical and psychological conditions. The benefits range widely from helping people go through difficult treatments, lifting moods, providing companionship, and helping them live independent life. The animals are most often dogs but could also be horses and 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.

There are three types of pet therapies, summed up in these related terms: service dogs, therapy dogs, and emotional support animals.

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

These terms, 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 ‘a 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 activities, 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 dogs and therapy dogs are service animals. They go through extensive training to become who they are. When you see them with the vest on, that means they are working, and they 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 a lot more friendly around therapy dogs since they are trained to be petted. Again, it is always good to ask first – the dog is still on the clock, after all.

Both service dogs and therapy dogs go through months-long rigorous training and subsequent regular assessments to make sure they are in tip-top shape for their duties. They also enjoy many public access rights while on the job.

Emotional Support Animals (ESA)

Meanwhile, emotional support animals (ESA) are home pets that get certified by a psychiatrist to be essential to their owner’s psychological wellbeing. They do not go through any kind of training to get certified, apart from whatever training by the owner. 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 non-judgmental and unbiased acceptance of who we are. Moreover, horses are sensitive creatures – they can recognize changes in their environment from far away, 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.

Since a horse can tell when you are lying, to have a smooth interaction, you are encouraged to connect with your body, to become aware of your intuition. Horses teach you about yourself.

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 benefit both healthy people and those suffering from clinical conditions.

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

The biggest benefit is the emotional bond that a person forms with the animal, which can make up for the lack of social connections or help the human cope with negativity and setbacks. 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, 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. The frequency of a cat’s purr is known to relieve panic attacks, relieving ailments such as insomnia, nightmares, or night terrors.

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 such as 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 that the handler could remind him to get it right.

Therapy dogs can provide comfort for 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 was seen happening again and again for 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 life 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. They can do things that no other medication or devices can do, and are too demanding or tedious for caretakers, 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 examples in which service dogs provide 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 told his story. The children said they could not have made it through without the dogs.

Are there any risks in pet therapy?

Allergies

What to do when you need a service dog but have asthma or an allergy? Allergies are often caused by fur, 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 furs, but make sure they are intelligent and loyal enough to get 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.

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

Public reactions and distractions

For a well-trained service dog, distractions are a constant problem. 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. Even then, however, the handler must constantly deny their requests and deal with the negative responses, making a short errand a harried experience.

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

A good rule of thumb is to leave the team in peace to go about their business. Trust that the dog is well-trained, and their handler is familiar with them. A trained service dog is much less of a risk to you than someone else’s untrained home dog.

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. But the low financial burden means many people are motivated enough to try, such as Beth who trained her own service dog, helping 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 long, from two to five years. 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

The cost for this option is lower, as you would do the training yourself. 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 train your service dog or therapy dog

Starting at six months old, your puppy goes through roughly 18 months of training. If they pass their exams, they can work as service animals.

2 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, in San Francisco, Zazu took a re-certification exam 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 mostly 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 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.

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