Even Small Paws can Provide Big Support
Animals, who doesn’t enjoy them. From filling a household, to teaching children about responsibility, to even encouraging emotional development. The role pets fulfill has always been important for humans. Thus, it is not weird to find out that the first dog was domesticated 15.000 to 16.000 years ago, which is 4.000 years earlier than the first domesticated goats, sheeps, and cows. Truly, humans are inseparable from pets, they have been in our history for such a long time. Moreover, they will stay part of our timeline, slowly getting more and more tasks they are able to fulfill.
There are three types of animals that I’d like to focus on, these are: service animals, emotional support animals, and therapy animals. These three types of animals are able to have an influence on the treatment of a client, some of them even being part of the treatment of a client.
Service animals are the more known kind of pets of the previously mentioned four. These animals are trained to assist in the daily living of a lesser abled person. But not every service animal has the same purpose. According to the International Assistance Animal Community (2007), there are three types of service animals; guide animals, who are able to guide the visually impaired, hearing animals, who are able to signal to the hearing impaired, and general service animals, who don’t fall under the category of guide animals or hearing animals.
The emotional support animal is a non-trained pet that provides support to the owner(s) mental health. Although there is evidence that all pets provide an improvement to the owner(s) mental health, not all pets have the role of being an emotional support animal.
The last type, therapy animals, is one that is quite interesting when studying Psychology. Therapy animals, which are mostly dogs, are trained animals that provide comfort, and support to individuals in different settings. These settings can be in a hospital, retirement home, nursing home, schools, and even more. Therapy animals are just like the service animals classified in different types: Therapeutic Visitation animals, Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) animals, Facility Therapy Animal, and Grief Therapy Animals. Why are we able to use animals in so many ways for therapy? Because they provide comfort, a feeling of companionship, a diversion of active and/or negative thoughts, a decreased resistance to relationship development in the therapy process. Moreover, they are able to improve many psychological conditions, some examples being: anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, autism spectrum disorders, dementia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Thus, if you’re interested in using therapy animals as part of future treatment, all that is required is to achieve an AAT-certificate.
Why have I used animals throughout this blog instead of dogs, even though dogs dominate the field of service animals? Because there have been instances that a different type of animal has been able to fulfill these tasks. One example being a miniature horse, which can be trained to become a guide animal, can pull wheelchairs if needed, or is able to assist an individual with Parkinson’s disease. Now I have two questions that pop up in my head. One, what about cats? And two, what would be the weirdest type of animal that would be successful in being a service animal, or therapy animal?
