Dogs In Therapy
The benefits of dogs in therapy
I have one large dog. He's a middle-aged Standard Poodle called Ralfie whom I adopted. He turned 8 in October. He will usually be in the room with us when we meet, either on his bed or lying with his head on your foot.
The two reasons for him not being in the room are: you don’t want him there — I always ask before we begin the first time —or I haven’t had time to clean him up from his morning at the Dog Park.
I believe having Ralfie in the room is therapeutic, so I like it when you allow it. I trust that having Ralfie present is good for the work we do is supported by more and more clinical research (Chandler, 2012; Stewert, Chang, & Rice, 2013; Gee, Rodriguez, Fine, & Trammell, 2021).
I believe dogs have a soothing effect on all of us (perhaps because they spend 80% of their time asleep?). Dr. Andrew Weil (2012) agrees. He says, "The ways that my dogs can make me - and my visitors - happy, constantly amazes me." I think dogs know something about what’s going on and, at times, are helpful.
For example, years ago I was seeing a patient I'll call Alice whose mother was very ill. The day after Alice's mother died, she came in and just talked about this and that, because she didn’t know how to talk about her mother — until my dog got on the couch next to her (something she had never done before with anyone and never did again).
As Alice pet the dog, she burst into tears and started talking about what was really important in the moment, her mother's passing.
Who knows how long it would have otherwise taken for her to get around to saying something about her big topic without that doggie intervention?
Freud & his Chinese Chows
Ralfie is beginning to do that. More often though, he hardly moves during the hour after his initial greeting and interaction with you. His calm behavior lends a sense of well being to the atmosphere in the room.
Many articles have been written about animals in therapy (see the bibliography below). It has been scientifically shown that spending time with dogs lessens fear and anxiety significantly more than music or art (Barker, Pandurangi, & Best, 2003). Soldiers with PTSD have found relief when they adopted a dog companion (Thompson, 2010).
Children do better in school when dogs are introduced (Jalongo, Astorino, & Bomboy, 2004); this includes college students and administrators (Binfet, 2019). Children with ADHD calm down when with a dog (Somervill, Kruglikova, Robertson, Hanson, & MacLin, 2009). Companiuon animals promote prosocial behavior in children and adolescents (Halbreich, Callina, King, & Mueller, 2023).
College students have an easier time studying when dogs (or cats or bunnies) are in the room (Somervill et al., 2008). The elderly are calmer in their care facilities when dogs visit (le Roux & Kemp, 2009). And our abillty to tolerate pain increases from spending as little as 10 minutes with a visiting dog (Carey, 2022).
Part of this has to do with petting. Odendaal and Meintjes (2003), psychologists at the Life Sciences Research Institute in Pretoria, South Africa, conducted a study with dogs and humans in 2003 that indicated petting a dog releases endorphins, as well as other "feel-good chemicals," in the brain, including dopamine, oxytocin, prolactin, and norepinehrine. Many more-recent studies confirm Odendaal and Meintjes' results (for example, Binfet, Green, & Draper, 2021). Not every patient is going to pet Ralfie (although he wishes it were so), but those who do can benefit from the touch.
Another gain for having a dog in the room during therapy has to do with a dog's being-ness. It seems that what dogs are thinking and how they're feeling is advantageous to us humans when we share space with them, which humans have done for at least the past 10,000 years (Perri, Feuerborn, Frantz, & Witt, 2021). I agree with those who believe that there’s a lot more going on in the minds of animals than we give them credit for (de Waal, 2016).
Sigmund Freud used to have dogs in the room when he saw patients.
According to Temple Grandin (Grandin & Johnson, 2005), his favorite dog could tell time; she let him know when a session was over.
Bibliography
Barker, S. B. (1999). Therapeutic aspects of the human-companion animal interaction. Psychiatric Times, 16(2).
Barker, S. B., & Barker, R. (1988). The human-canine bond: Closer than family ties. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 10, 46-56.
Barker, S. B., Pandurangi, A. K., & Best, A. M. (2003). Effects of animal-assisted therapy on patients’ anxiety, fear, and depression before ECT. Journal of ECT, 19(1), 38-44. doi:10.1097/00124509-200303000-00008
Bendix, A. (March 13, 2024). Playing with dogs helps people concentrate and relax, brain recordings show. NBC Health News. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/dogs-help-people-concentrate-relax-brain-study-rcna142973
Binfet, J.-T. (10 March 2019). I oversee a dog therapy program on a college campus: Heres what I have learned. In Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dog-therapy-students-college-campus b 5c90ffa9e4b04d574a452c73
Binfet, J-T., Green,F. L. L., & Draper Z. A. (06 July 2021). The importance of client-canine contact in canine-assisted interventions: A randomized controlled trial. Anthrozoos, 35(1), 1-22.
Carey, B., Dell, C. A., Stemplen, J., Tupper, S., Rohr, B., Carr, E., . . . Meier, S. (2022, March 09). Outcomes of a controlled trial with visiting therapy dog teams on pain in adults in an emergency department. PLOS ONE. Retrieved from https://doi.org//10.1371/journal.pone .0262599
Gee, N. R., Rodriguez, K. E., Fine, A. H., & Trammell, J. P. (2021). Dogs supporting human health and wellbeing: A biopsychosocial approach. Frontiers in Veterinary Sciences, 8. doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.630465
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