The Flip Side: Balancing Valid Welfare Concerns with Potential Positives for Career Speech Therapy Dogs
Wednesday morning, 9am…
Delta lies on my bed staring at me as I get ready for work. Makeup done, teeth brushed, clothing not-too-covered in dog hair—check. I start to hear the slow, soft “thump, thump” of her tail and feel her eyes boring into me.
As I exit the bathroom, she leaps off the bed and runs ahead of me to sit by my work bag, shifting her gaze between me and the carryall.
“Are you ready for work?” I ask as I reach for her customized Speech Therapy Dog bandana.
“Yes!” she answers by popping up and nearly knocking me over as I tie the bandana strings around her neck. This is the start to my typical work day…
Speech therapy dog Delta jumps up for some attention. Delta can be very enthusiastic about coming to work, where she helps me provide animal-assisted speech therapy to children ranging from toddlers to teens.
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Reading the new 6th edition of the Handbook of Animal-Assisted Therapy, I was struck by the repeated and overarching emphasis on therapy animal welfare.
Struck in positive way, as I absolutely agree that a content therapy animal is a much safer therapy animal. But also struck in how little recognition was given to the possible benefits a therapy animal might experience from engaging in this work.
(Side note: I highly recommend this book! At 500+ pages of 30 in-depth chapters this is a definite commitment to read and much of the information is theoretical in nature, though this edition finally includes some critical “how-to” and inspiring stories as well.
If you ever need to cite research studies to justify adding a therapy animal to your practice, want a more a solid base in animal welfare considerations, hope to better understand the theories around the human-animal-bond, or are curious about the history of animal-assisted interventions, this is the resource you need. It would also be helpful in studying for your Certified Animal-Assisted Intervention Specialist test.)
At the risk of sounding like I’m just trying to justify what I do, I’d like to discuss three features of animal-assisted speech therapy that I think should also receive consideration while having a balanced discussion of therapy dog welfare…
But first, a brief history of therapy dog welfare
As late as the 1960’s, animal welfare was largely a subjective matter with no widespread consolidated agreement on what was viewed as acceptable animal husbandry. The Five Freedoms, first published in the UK in 1965 primarily to protect farm animals, has criteria that include:
· Freedom from thirst, hunger, and malnutrition
· Freedom from discomfort
· Freedom from pain, injury, and disease
· Freedom from fear and distress
· Freedom to express normal behavior
In essence, the focus was on avoiding discomfort and pain in animals but not so much on a positive quality of life, or QOL.
By the 1990’s came a twist on the Five Freedoms known as the Five Domains, which emphasized less “freedom from…” and more “freedom to…”. The overall idea is that positive experiences of nutrition, environment, physical health and natural behaviors leads to positive mental states that are associated with a positive QOL.
Neither of these models was specifically aimed at animal-assisted interventions, but they have been widely adopted as a foundation from which to consider how, why, when, and where we incorporate live, sentient, non-human partners into our professional work.
(More details on the Five Freedoms and the Five Domains can be found throughout the Handbook but especially in Chapter 6, as well as the scholarly article “Updating Animal Welfare Thinking: Moving beyond the “Five Freedoms” towards “A Life Worth Living,” available free online.)
Potential positive #1 for a speech therapy dog: increased bonding
Let me be clear: I ABSOLUTELY support the need for constant consideration of a therapy dog’s welfare.
And I recognize it can be difficult to stay unbiased given that the needs of our clients, ourselves as working professionals, and our therapy dogs sometimes come into conflict.
And while I’m not personally a fan of excessive oversight, I do support and participate in routine third party evaluation of my therapy dog handling skills and my therapy’s dog’s ongoing suitability for the role (see Peace of Mind for Therapy Dog Handlers: How I’m Working to Reduce My Risk as an Animal-Assisted Interventionist)
However, I do see positive outcomes of working together with an animal I have brought into my life.
The first is the sheer amount of quality time I spend with my therapy dogs.
Delta the speech therapy dog-in-training on one of our many, many socialization outings. Here we visited a local car repair shop, where her picture was taken to help promote their new pet friendly waiting area.
Even before they start coming to the office, I spend 6 months to a year attending training classes, going on frequent socialization outings, and embedding training exercises throughout our day. During these times my focus is 100% on my therapy dog recruit and our shared experiences as we achieve goals and overcome challenges.
I know I would never devote the time, money, and mental energy into training a companion dog to the same degree as I do with a therapy dog.
Then, when work does officially start, we share hours and hours together that we would otherwise be separated, dog at home alone while human is at the office.
Not all experiences are good. Sometimes a client is really dysregulated and struggling to calm their body even with all the help my therapy dog and I can provide. Sometimes clients with motor challenges aren’t as gentle in their petting as would be ideal. And sometimes I even have to separate my dog for a session if they are overwhelming for a particular child on that day.
But most sessions are mutually enjoyable, as evidenced by my therapy dog actively consenting or even asking for more interactions with both me and my clients.
Which leads me to…
Potential positive #2 for a speech therapy dog: improved communication between dog and handler
I am a lifetime dog owner. In fact, for most of my life I’ve had multiple dogs at a time. I’ve competed in agility, trained a bit in rally obedience, and watched or read any story in which I’m assured the dog won’t die in the end (and even some in which they do).
Yet, I didn’t realize how much dog psychology and body language I didn’t know until I started animal-assisted therapy.
At home with a companion dog you can get away with a lot as a clueless dog guardian.
But place that same dog in a high-stakes environment like a rehab office or school, where behavior expectations are high for the sake of safety while we simultaneously introduce all kinds of unnatural interactions, and you can bet you’re going to find a reason to increase your ability to “speak” dog.
If I could only give one piece of advice to a prospective animal-assisted speech therapist, it’s this: start NOW to learn all you can about dog body language in general, your specific therapy dog hopeful’s individual body language, and how to make adjustments in the moment to lead a stressed dog back to a calm state of mind and body.
(See my favorite resources on the Animal-Assisted Therapy Books and DVDs page.)
Potential positive #3 for a speech therapy dog: Enrichment
Reading The Forever Dog: Surprising New Science to Help Your Canine Companion Live Younger, Healthier, and Longer by Rodney Habib and Karen Shaw Becker, the message I saw again and again is that the average companion dog is plagued by lack of physical and mental activity which leads to accelerated aging and shortened “health span”.
I honestly don’t think this applies to my speech therapy dogs. They spend their work days (1-2 days a week per dog) puzzling out what a client or I need in the moment, often offering up different behaviors until the most helpful one gets reinforced.
They spend periods of time concentrating in a sit or down-stay until I give them a release cue to find their favorite snack or toy.
And possibly their favorite—they get to search out hidden treats from dog puzzles of a variety of difficulty levels depending on the client’s goal in the activity.
Plus, while in my work I don’t personally emphasize a lot of tricks as I feel the real power of animal-assisted therapy lies in the human-animal bond, my therapy dogs nonetheless are frequently learning new skills that help within sessions. Sometimes the kids themselves even work to teach my dogs a new trick of their choosing.
Delta and a client work together on a favorite dog puzzle as part of an animal-assisted speech therapy activity. I love the Nina Ottoson level 1 & level 2 puzzles in particular for eliciting joint attention, asking questions, sequencing, and more. Plus it adds enrichment to a speech therapy dog’s day.
Of course each therapy animal-handler team needs to consider both the positives and negatives of their work together as there are so many variables involved in AAT (population served, length and frequency of work day(s), age of the dog, experience of the handler, workplace environment, etc.).
I literally “ask” my dogs each day if they want to come to work, watching their body language for an answer. So far I’ve never had a no, but if I did I would take that seriously.
I also make note in a planner of any days my dogs behave with less enthusiasm than normal and if there starts to be a pattern I consider time off, a vet trip, or both.
Though it’s rare, Delta occasionally has a day where she is less naturally interactive. Certainly as Johnny Utah aged I would note how tired he was the day after work, which informed my decision to retire him despite his continued enthusiasm to go into the office. And while I tried to deny it for awhile, Bodhi’s decline in enthusiasm to interact with older kids and caregivers eventually forced me to realize that speech therapy dog was not his role in life. (Meet the dogs at the bottom of the About page).
Becoming a speech therapy dog is not for every canine. By carefully considering an individual animal’s suitability for AAT and coupling that not only with an environment as free from negative experiences as possible but also filled with enriching activities, I believe we CAN provide a positive working experience for our canine co-therapists.
If you’re interested in learning more, be sure to follow on Instagram @speech_dogs and check out the book Paws for Progress: Integrating Animal-Assisted Interventions Into Your Speech-Language Pathology Practice and the course Talk to the Paw: Foundations for Incorporating Therapy Animals Into a Professional Setting.
As always, I’d love to know your thoughts or questions on this very important topic. Email me at sharlet@speechdogs.com
May your day be filled with puppy wiggles and children’s giggles,
Sharlet
Update: Between writing and publishing this article, the Mayo Clinic published the first randomized-controlled and prospective (collecting data in real time) study on the welfare of therapy dogs participating in 30 minute sessions with adult patients. Results indicated animal-assisted therapy does not induce stress and that therapy dogs may actually be more relaxed after sessions! The study used the diamond model with certified & experienced volunteer teams, but it’s a great start to bringing in support for our work from a welfare standpoint!
