Earlier this year in the Journal of Applied Developmental Science, an introduction to a series of articles on “animal-assisted intervention” reported that research into the effectiveness of animal therapy “remains in its infancy.” A recent Yale University study of a therapy dog named Pardner cited a “murky body of evidence” that his presence sometimes has shown positive short-term effects, but often found no real effect on illness or outcomes.
This, frankly, has been my experience, much as I loved and admire Red.
We do a lot of brief and short-term good, but we do not ever fundamentally alter the fates and real health of the people we see. We spent 10 to 15 minutes with the people we see, and then leave. We don’t have a magic wand.
The more we love our dogs, the more pressure we are putting on them to be supernatural in their powers. They don’t alter the nature of life, at least in my experience. They just make us feel good, and isn’t that enough?
Red has never kept anyone from getting sick or dying, or been a substitute for trained health care professionals. They just love to see him, it connects them to their lives and memories and past, and that is healthy, but not a miracle.
The Therapy Dog is a relatively new idea in the animal world, it coincides with the ascent of the Rescue Dog Culture and the epidemic emotionalizing of animals in our disconnected, fragmented and often angry culture.
Ever since a therapist named Boris Levinson wrote a book in 1960 called Pets And Human Development, (whose book I have right on my shelf), the idea that animals can heal and uplift people has grown, sometimes irrationally so.
Levinson was really the father of the therapy dog, he foresaw that the institutions and forces that uplifted and stabilized people – religion, politics, technology – would become disruptive and disturbing and fail to offer inspiration.
The people of the future would turn to animals for comfort. He was prescient.
Almost everyone I meet with a dog tells me their dog would make a great therapy dog, even if the dog has not been certified or tested, is untrained, has sharp claws that might rake an elderly person’s skin, doesn’t come or sit, has no recall, and jumps on people.
A friend told me her dog would make a wonderful therapy dog, and asked when he could start work. It turns out he doesn’t come when called, sit or stay when told, and runs off if he hears strange sounds.
Therapy dog fashion accessories – vests, collars, sweaters, bumper stickers, pins and badges, scarves – are a booming business. Speaking only for me, I cannot imagine putting a vest on Red that says “therapy dog.” He doesn’t need it to do his work, and I know what he is.
In San Francisco, there is a pig to walk around the airport to ease people’s stress, people take ducks and ferrets on planes as “emotional” companions to relieve the stress of air travel, and there are now therapy dogs for people with anxiety, depression, panic attacks and scores of phobias. Being a dog is no longer good enough for many people, they must also be healers, psychics and emotional support systems.
Many nursing homes and hospitals say they are sometimes overwhelmed with people wanting to bring their therapy dogs inside. Therapy animals are everywhere, and the more anxious and neurotic our frazzled society becomes, the more we seem to be turning to animals, just as Dr. Levinson predicted a half century ago.
But how much good to therapy dogs really do? The strange truth is that nobody knows. I’ve been doing hospice, veterans, dementia, and assisted care therapy work for nearly 10 years, and I can’t really answer the question. The Washington Post reports today that biologists and researchers believe the movement is spreading almost beyond control or understanding.
The researchers I have spoken with in my book research say the same thing I see and feel. Animals are helpful in a “small-to-medium” way but they may be getting much more credit than they deserve for transforming reality – we are all going to get sick and die, no matter how many dogs we see or ducks we carry around with us.
What is clear is that the therapy dog movement has greatly outpaced the ability of researchers to gauge and fully understand it.
It is clear that therapy dogs like Red have a visible benefit – they cheer people up, and make them smile. But the more we emotionalize our dogs – hundreds of thousands of dogs are not on anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications because we are making them crazy like us – the more miracles and mystical power we seem to need to attribute to them.
I don’t want to put all of that on Red. He is great at what he does, but what he does is limited and short-lived. Making people smile is a big deal, but it’s important to keep perspective. It is not transformative.
Some people claim their therapy animals foresee death – a common and medically undocumented claim. More and more dogs are being trained to spot cancer through smell, but do they spot cancer as well as an MRI machine or good health care? Nobody knows.
Red senses when a person is near death because they withdraw their attention from him and gather themselves to die. This does not mean he understands death and can predict it or see terminal disease as it emerges. And there is virtually no substantial evidence that supports the idea that dogs can heal chronic illnesses.
Red is, in my mind, an effective therapy dog. People are delighted to see him, it cheers them up, which is healthy in itself.
This is good enough for me. Recently, his presence inspired Connie, a patient in an assisted care facility we visit, to get up and walk when she needed to. But her back still hurts and her other medical issues remain. Red can’t cure people or make Connie’s back stop hurting.
I think the therapy idea has gone too far, and I am careful to limit the expectations I put on Red and offer the people he sees.
A good therapy dog brings some light to darkness, connects people with their memories. That is enough for me.
Red cannot vanquish anxiety or dread, if he did, I would sleep a lot better. He grasps the withdrawal of people from life, but he has no idea what death is or means.
Red went through a lot of training to be a therapy dog, I trained him, he passed rigorous testing from a certified therapy dog organization, he has been tested in hospice, veteran’s clinics, and dementia, nursing homes and assisted care facilities. Every dog is not a good therapy dog.
Perspective is important to me, nowhere more so than when we deal with issues of life and death. Many a nursing home director has told me there are plenty of dogs visiting their residents, but very few humans or family members. “I’d take a family member any day over a dog,” one told me.
I sometimes wonder if we are not using animals to screen the fact that we, as a culture, have abandoned the elderly and the terminally ill to institutions where they are hidden from sight and are no longer seen or connected to the rest of their world or ours. Is it perhaps because we comfort ourselves with the idea that the animals are doing it?
I see plenty of dogs when I do therapy work with Red. I don’t see many people who aren’t being paid to be there.