In the United States, therapy dogs are used in various environments such as nursing homes, physical therapy facilities, and hospitals. Most recently their role has expanded to include visiting schools and court settings to help support and comfort victims of domestic violence. Testifying and standing up against someone who has harmed them can be devastating to children and therapy dogs give them comfort and strength.
Therapy dogs are able to bring a calm to children with special needs and sometime they are able to break through a wall the children have built up to the outside world. With a wag of a tail and an offering of a paw, these dogs are able to bring happiness to children and adults that need it the most. Nursing homes report that residents that once were depressed and in a state of refusing to participate socially, come alive once they are visited by a therapy dog. The dogs improve moods and the levels of communication and engagement.
One noted story was of an elderly woman from New York who hadn’t spoken in years and constantly clutched a stuffed toy dog while she stared into space. After many visits from a therapy dog, the woman started responding, eventually abandoning her stuffed animal. After some time she reached out and stroked the therapy dog’s fur and spoke the dogs name – her first words in years.
The requirement for a therapy dog candidate include a calm, friendly and well behaved dog at least 1 year of age. Signs of a good dog include a relaxed and confident nature. The training that is required includes a 12 hour course where the dog owner is taught how to handle the dog around people confined to wheelchairs and who have IV’s. A vet has to approve the dog physically for the work. Then a 22 part evaluation of the dog’s obedience skills as well your control of your dog are conducted.
Service Dogs
Decades ago, when people thought of service dogs it was usually the seeing eye dogs that came to mind. But the benefits of using dogs to help individuals with life threatening medical conditions and mental disabilities have been expanded on and future benefits are likely to develop. Service dogs are allowed in any building that the dog’s parent is allowed.
In one family, two dogs were used to help with the special needs of the children. One dog alerts the parents when their nine year old daughter’s blood sugar spikes by barking loudly – even if it’s in the middle of the night. The other dog helps to detect stress in their autistic son. The dog even assists the child during he may have an episode. The parents say the dogs have brought some calmness to their household.
Dogs are now able to warn people with bipolar disease when their body chemistry is out of whack, alert epileptics when a seizure is approaching, and warn highly allergic people of harm.
Dogs are able to smell the tiniest shifts in a peson’s body chemistry or detect a minuscule particle of an allergen like peanuts.
What is interesting is that the people with service dogs say they do much more than what they were trained to do. Even experts in the field cannot explain how the dogs instinctively expand the ways they assist the person they are caring for. Their presence provides more than just safe guarding. There was a child that was given a dog to detect her seizures coming on and to interrupt the behavior. The many years the dog lived with her she never had a seizure. After the dog passed away, they resumed. No obvious reason for the situation.
Another condition that has become very common is PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.Some veterans claim that owning a service dog has accomplished what years of therapy couldn’t.
It’s not surprising that dogs can have such a positive effect on the person they watch over and spend so much time with. They are working dogs that take their job seriously and care deeply for the person and the task they have. Dogs are sensitive to our body chemistry and movements and I think that without realizing it we become sensitive to them also.
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