Service Dogs Dealing With Covid

The pandemic has interrupted training for dogs for people who have visual or hearing impairments, disabilities, epilepsy, autism, or diabetes. Here’s what that means for the dogs — and for the people who rely on them.

When the Lions Foundation of Canada Dog Guides team called Andréa McLean in mid-March to ask her whether she’d take Gisele the poodle back from guide-dog training, McLean didn’t hesitate to say yes. “When they called us and told us, could she come home? I think my response was, ‘Why are you asking? Of course the answer’s yes,” McLean says. “I think most fosters, given the chance to have their foster puppy back from school, for any length of time — all of us, the answer would be yes.”

McLean had previously fostered Gisele for about a year, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic put her scheduled six months of training on hold. Within two weeks, Dog Guides was able to send the 150 dogs in training back to fosters or to dog sitters.

While Gisele’s unexpected return has brought joy to the McLean family, a pause on dog training is a big problem for the foundation and for the close to 60 people across Canada waiting for dogs to help them in their daily lives.

Dog Guides Canada trains dogs for people who have visual or hearing impairments, disabilities, epilepsy, autism, or diabetes. For some people, waiting for a dog guide means waiting to receive vital support. Dog guides can help their partners move from place to place, provide comfort and companionship, and perform alerts based on conditions in the environment or the health of their partner.

The Oakville-based charity typically matches 150 teams across Canada annually, but this year, it says, that probably won’t happen. Spring and summer classes have been cancelled, and fall and winter classes likely will be, too. Training teams requires in-person guidance, and, since many applicants have compromised immune systems, Dog Guides doesn’t want them to risk travelling to Oakville during the pandemic. “It’s all very unsettling, I think, is probably the kindest word,” director of program development Ian Ashworth says. Eventually, the charity plans to bring its 150 guides-in-training back to class, but, for now, training has moved online. Dog Guides is also working to remotely support the 1,100 dog teams already active in Canada, following up to ensure that the dogs are meeting recipients’ needs.

Basic online training does not replace the classroom training dog guides receive from professionals, nor does it negate the need for applicants and dogs to train together. “We have to teach our recipients to become dog trainers, basically, because a dog’s training can change,” Ashworth says. “It can deteriorate over time. It can change in different environments, sometimes [with] different people. So we need to teach our recipients those skills that enable them to continue that training once they return home.” Dogs and humans must also learn to work together. “Our recipients have, obviously, a whole range of challenges that they face. And so, on top of [those], we’re trying to teach them how to handle this highly trained dog.”

The McLean family, which lives in Burlington, cares for Beechy, a five-year-old poodle who breeds for Dog Guides. Gisele is her daughter, as is Karma, a puppy the family is also fostering. Both were born in McLean’s dining room. She says it’s not unusual for there to be so many dogs in the house. Her daughters help take care of them, recording basic training exercises with Gisele and sending videos to Dog Guides coaches to monitor her progress. Gisele seems happy and is doing well with her exercises, McLean says, but notes, “What we don’t know is how it’ll be for her to transition back to school. I do know she loves her trainers, which helps a lot.”

Ashworth says the delay in training means that dogs will need to be reassessed to ensure they can still perform guide duties. If the disruption in training means a dog no longer can, it will undergo a “career change” and be offered up for adoption as a pet.

One major concern for the dogs now is socialization, Ashworth says. Dog guides need to go wherever people do, but, right now, most don’t venture far. Gisele is well-socialized already, McLean says, but Karma was only nine weeks old when the pandemic was declared. “We’d take her a few places the first two weeks that she was a foster, and then COVID hit. She basically hasn’t been anywhere since.” Normally, McLean takes dogs she fosters to work, stores, and her kids’ swimming practices, getting them used to all sorts of sights, sounds, and smells. As more of the province reopens, Dog Guides says foster families can take dogs out, but it is asking them to limit that to essential trips only.

The training delay, which will increase if some dogs change careers, means it will take longer for everyone waiting to be paired with a dog. “Normally, we’d have Karma for a year to a year and a half. We will potentially have Karma longer,” McLean says. “Training has stopped, graduations have stopped, and the classrooms aren’t full yet. It’s going to take a while for everything to be moved through the system.”

Braydon Drexler, 13, is waiting on a new dog. He lives in Winnipeg and has worked with a dog guide named Keats since he was in kindergarten. Braydon has autism, and Keats helps him relax in otherwise stressful situations, such as school or going to the hospital, which he had to do recently after breaking his arm. Keats is due to retire and will go to live with Braydon’s grandmother, but, for now, his retirement has been postponed. Braydon’s mom, Tracey, says Keats doesn’t seem to mind. “Every time someone goes near the door, he’s waiting for his vest to be put on. He’s missing school.”

Tracey says that when they got Keats, Braydon didn’t speak and was dealing with sensory issues and other challenges: “Kind of as a last resort, being aged out of therapies and stuff, we decided to try a dog guide, and, boy, am I glad we did, because it’s made a world of difference.” She says she was hoping Braydon could take the coming school year to get used to living with a new support dog before he finishes Grade 8 and moves on to high school. She worries that transitioning to a new dog and a new school at the same time might be hard on him. Braydon says he’s “just a little bit” excited about getting a new dog when that does happen.

Therapy Dogs Become Companions

Valrico resident Michael Kurtz has been around dogs all his life.

“We had Irish setters and my dad would train them to follow commands and walk without a leash, but I never realized as a kid how important it was to train a dog,” Kurtz said. “I learn this later on in life, that a dog doesn’t just magically behave that way and it gave me a lot of respect for what my dad had done with our dog.”

Kurtz is the owner of Kurtz K9 and he offers obedience training for dogs as well as training huskies to be therapy dogs.

“When I was a kid, I started researching everything I could about dogs and how to train them,” Kurtz said. “This led me to start learning about the psychology of dogs and how they interact with humans.”

In the beginning, all of the training he did with dogs was self-taught.

“It wasn’t until 30 some years later I read the materials and got the certification you’re supposed to have to train dogs,” said Kurtz, who is ESA certified and works to rescue, rehabilitate and train large breed dogs.

Over the years, Kurtz has found that huskies make great therapy dogs for veterans who are dealing with PTSD.

“Huskies have a pack mentality and that’s what makes them so great for partnering with service men and women,” Kurtz said. “When you’re in the service, you kind of have a pack mentality where you rely on your brothers and sisters in arms to watch your back, and when they come home, they don’t have that feeling any more, especially if they are dealing with PTSD. There is just a connection with dogs that veterans don’t have with humans.”

Having a service dog became very personal for Kurtz as well. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

“I couldn’t do all the things I used to do, and having a little extra help from my dog has turned out to be absolutely invaluable to me,” Kurtz said. “It’s allowed me to continue to do things I did before I got the tumor.”

Pet Value And Fundraiser

Pet Valu partnered with the U.S War Dogs Association to have their annual Patriotic Pets fundraiser.

This year’s fundraiser runs from July 1-31 and encourages Pet Valu customers to show their support for the nonprofit organization by purchasing a patriotic-themed or camouflage bandana for just $5 or donating any amount of their choosing, which is then displayed on paper paws in stores.

Proceeds from bandana sales and paper paw donations directly benefit the U.S. War Dogs Association, a nonprofit that honors wartime canines and educates the public about their service. Last year, customers helped raise $424,140 for the organization and over the past nine years, Pet Valu has raised nearly $3 million.

Donations directly help cover the costs of transporting veteran war dogs back to the U.S. after their service, finding homes for retired K9s, memorializing fallen four-legged soldiers, providing service dogs with state-of-the-art equipment to support them both overseas and back home, sending care packages to service dogs and their soldiers, facilitating a free prescription drug program for retired military K9s, TSA and Secret Service dogs, and providing funds for the Rainbow Bridge Assistance Program.

​“It has been very rewarding to see the growth of this fundraiser, and as a result, the organization over the last 10 years,” said Ally Homa, senior marketing manager of Pet Valu. “We hope to be able to continue to support this organization through the generous donations from our customers for many years to come.”

Puppies On Parade

Ben Alloway was thrilled to have so many furry visitors at his fourth birthday party on Saturday afternoon.

Ben’s parents, Kyle and Makayla, arranged to have a surprise “puppy parade” with visitors walking dogs by the Alloways’ Juniata home during the party.

Due to concerns about the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, the party itself was limited only to family.

Kyle and Makayla used Facebook to invite the public to bring their dogs and walk by the Alloway house, however.

“He thought it was great,” Kyle Alloway said. “He was just having a good time anyway because his family was here. He loved the animals. He was handing out treats, and he was petting them. Some of them had gifts for him, including a service animal that had a present for him in her backpack.”

Ben’s third birthday was monster truck-themed with all monster truck décor.

“This year we asked him what he wanted for his birthday and his wish was to have a ‘wolf petting zoo,’ ” Kyle said. “He’s really taken an interest in wolves.”

The effort started with Kyle and Makayla asking friends they knew who had huskies to bring their dogs by, which turned into any dog welcome.

Still, Kyle estimated there were 10 huskies in the parade.

“We had a really good turnout,” he said.

The parade included 40-50 dogs, and one pig

Michelle Jones, whom the Alloways hadn’t met prior to Saturday, organized parade participants from a church parking lot, about a block away. She brought a card for everyone to sign.

The Alloways had a water bowl and goodie bags available for the dogs.

Kyle was encouraged by the public participation at his son’s birthday party.

“Honestly, I think people need something good right now where it’s kind of a rough time,” he said. “People have been home. People can’t get out. This was a positive experience for everybody. It just shows our community is close, comes together.”

 

Meet Hand In Paw

When Ashley Foster decided to leave the rough winters of Chicago and return to her hometown of Birmingham, AL, in 2014, she knew she wanted to get involved with Hand in Paw. Serving North Central Alabama and Tuscaloosa, Hand in Paw is an animal-assisted therapy nonprofit with professionally trained volunteer handlers and animal therapy teams offering support to healthcare facilities, schools and human service organizations free of charge. Ashley joined the Hand in Paw junior board, and when the organization was looking for a new Director of Events and Strategic Partnerships, she jumped at the chance to join the staff — which she did in 2018. At the start of 2020, Ashley — a graduate of Furman University in Greenville, SC — was named Hand in Paw’s Development Director. We talked with Ashley about her new role, animal-assisted therapy and the future of Hand in Paw. We’re excited to introduce our newest FACE of Birmingham, Ashley Foster.

I’ve been an animal person for as long as I can remember. From childhood on, I’ve just found that dogs can provide such a source of comfort and solace during difficult times. Although my dog is not a Hand in Paw therapy animal, I kind of consider her my therapy dog. She’s brought a lot of laughter, happiness and joy. And in the hard times, she provided unconditional love. I’ve had her since I was 22. When you’re in your 20s, there’s a lot of transition, and she was the one constant.

Right out of school, I started working at a technology company in Greenville as an events assistant. I had a few other jobs in Greenville, and then when I moved to Chicago, I moved to the nonprofit sector. I was essentially doing the same thing in event planning but at the Salvation Army. I learned a lot in that role, and I had to do fundraising. Raising money was new to me, but I did that through events. So, I was using my skill set to fundraise for that cause. When I moved home, I worked at the cancer center at UAB in the same kind of role. I also worked in suicide prevention before this job, but I knew if I wanted to progress in my career, it would lean more toward development and donor giving.

I work very closely with Brittany Jennings, who’s our Director of Communications, and she has insight into all of the waves of technology and ways of fundraising through online resources. One thing she developed is a rebranding of our monthly giving. When I researched millennials and new donors, I learned about the importance of recurring monthly giving. Brittany compares it to Netflix for charities. We rebranded it and named it The Pack. We’re already seeing new people sign up. That’s a great way for people to give even if they want to do just $5 a month. It makes a difference.

We also just got approval to get two dip jars. It’s basically a digital version of a jar where people can donate cash or coins, which we’ve had at all of our booths and events, but nobody has cash anymore. So, you just dip your card in and you can donate that way.

I oversee our three major fundraisers: Mutt Strut, Picasso Pets and Barktoberfest. From logistics to sponsorships to vendors, I’m your point person. Mutt Strut is our major fundraiser, and we have over 1,000 people and 700 dogs come out.

There is some confusion around animal-assisted therapy when it comes to therapy dogs versus service animals versus emotional support animals. The primary difference is service and emotional support animals are specifically trained for one individual. Our dogs are trained to provide therapy to multiple people. So, you might see someone in an airport who has a service dog wearing a vest that says, “Do not pet.” But one of the main things we look for when we screen our dogs is making sure the dog enjoys being pet. Our dogs are very friendly, very well-behaved, and they love tummy rubs. [They] don’t have the same legal rights as a service dog. We have pre-approval to get into our specific facilities, obviously, but a Hand in Paw team can’t just put on the therapy dog scarf and walk into a restaurant.

I think a lot of people are familiar with Petscription, which is our largest and most broadly applied program where we go into hospitals, retirement homes and other healthcare settings and provide comfort, distraction and healing with our dogs. But we have three other program areas: education, violence prevention, and trauma and grief response.

We help with literacy skills through our Sit, Stay, Read program. We’re launching a supplemental program called READ (Reading Education Assistance Dogs), and we go to after-school programs and the YWCA. We also have our dogs do regular visits in classrooms with students with special needs.

With violence prevention, for elementary school children, we do the No More Bullying! curriculum for that group. For older children, we have a curriculum-based program called Pawsitive Living.

With trauma and grief, we visited UAB Highlands and Parker High School after their shootings. These teams have advanced training that they go through and provide comfort, support and help to survivors to help them process what’s going on.

Ride Share Refused Guide Dog

Explosives Sniffer

After having been on the tail of criminals for years, one of the top dogs of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is about to press ‘paws’ on his career.

Patreek is an eight-year-old German Shepherd that responds to commands only in Russian. And he has allegiance to one person – his handler, Inspector Gregory Ottar, chief canine trainer at the JCF’s Canine Division.

The two developed an inseparable bond back in 2013 during a three-month training regimen in Russia, Patreek’s homeland. Since the top dog’s arrival in Jamaica that same year, Patreek has shown himself to have distinctive pedigree among equals.

Ottar disclosed during an interview with The Gleaner that Patreek’s response exclusively to commands in Russian was the wish of the administration at his home canine training school in Russia.

“One of the reasons is less distraction because if you are working and somebody knows the command, it can distract the dog,” he said.

The inspector said that Patreek was the only dog in the division that responded to commands in Russian. There are other dogs who are trained to respond to Dutch or English.

“He’s smart, intelligent, loyal, disciplined, and loving,” Ottar said of his pal and training partner.

Trained to detect explosives, Patreek has had a decorated career and has a list of impressive achievements. His biggest wag was working as the sole detective dog during the Jamaica visit of former President of the United States Barack Obama in 2015.

“When the Americans saw how he worked, they put up their dogs and allowed Patreek to do his job. They were fond of him when they saw how intelligent he was,” said Ottar.

“He worked all over Jamaica whenever heads of government are going to meet and during sittings of Parliament.”

Patreek is so devoted to his handler that he refuses to work with any other person. If Ottar is off duty, so is Patreek.

“He won’t work for anybody else. That’s the relationship that we have,” the inspector said. Ottar revealed that whenever he goes off on vacation leave, Patreek becomes extremely stressed.

There is always much anticipation at the start of each day, but the veteran dog prizes presence and loyalty over overt acts of endearment.

“He will allow you to touch him, but he won’t show you any affection. Patreek doesn’t show his love like other dogs do,” Ottar told The Gleaner.

As service dogs in the Canine Division normally retire at age eight, Patreek’s career is coming to an end soon. If retired dogs are not adopted by their handlers, they are turned over to the Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to be adopted.

But for Patreek, there is no doubt where he will end up.

“I’m going to take him,” exclaimed Ottar, who said that Patreek would never survive if he were to be placed with someone else.

Patreek enjoys going out for occasional drives with his handler and can be extremely protective of him. Ottar said that Patreek has proven to be more than man’s best friend.

“He would have helped me in my promotions and helped me to become a better trainer,” Ottar said.

Service Dog Graduates

William and Soya celebrated several milestones together this month as they graduated from fifth grade at Parkwood Elementary School.

The two have grown up together, gone through school together and have been pretty much inseparable for the past six years but will be taking somewhat different paths once the new school year begins.

William Dedmond will be attending New Bridge Middle School and Soya, his service dog, will be retiring from her school duties.

“It will be weird,” William, 11, said when asked how it is going to feel not having Soya with him at school.

He had to think a minute before answering; he’s never really known otherwise. Soya has always been close by, either at his desk or within close range in his classroom.

Classmates asked about Soya when she stayed home for a day and Soya got her own photo in the school yearbook. She was a part of the Parkwood School community.

“When Soya was there I didn’t really think of her as a dog, she was like a student,” William said of having a service dog with him at school.

William, the son of Jason and Melissa Dedmond of Jacksonville, was diagnosed with epilepsy at 9 months old and Soya has been at his side since he was 4 years old and still in preschool.

Soya, a Golden Retriever, is trained as a Seizure Assistance Dog, which alerts others through smell as to when a seizure occurs or is going to occur.

The good news is that William had his first normal electroencephalogram (EEG) a year and a half ago and has been able to come off the medications that have long been needed to manage the seizures.

With the latest test results, William is able to head to middle school without needing a service dog with him.

While Soya will still be around to watch over him, the Dedmonds hope William has outgrown the seizures. His last grand mal seizure was at age 5.

Jason Dedmond said that from 9 months old to age 5 William had many types of seizures, at times two or more a week.

“You name a seizure, he’s had it,” Dedmond said.

When the seizures were at their worst and most frequent, the Dedmonds were barely able to sleep as they kept watch.

Through a community fundraiser, Wags for William, they raised the $13,000 needed to get a service dog and an additional $7,000 that was contributed to help another family in line for a service dog.

The family traveled to Ohio for two weeks for their part in the training and brought Soya in Jan. 2014 when she was 13 months old. She was named Soyala, which means winter solstice in American Indian because that is when she was born.

Jason said that when William entered kindergarten at Parkwood Elementary, he joined his son at school for a week to help train the teachers and school staff.

The teachers knew what to do if there was a “Code Purple” and Soyala alerted them to a seizure.

It happened often while William was in preschool at First Baptist Church, now Catalyst Church. Fortunately, Dedmond said, there was not a Code Purple for William while he was a Parkwood.

“We were very blessed,” he said.

As William heads on to middle school, one thing won’t change: the bond he has with Soya.

William smiles as he remembers the Halloween costumes they’ve shared.

“She was a super hero for Halloween,” he said.

It seems fitting for a dog he says has super powers.

Soya plans to retire to normal dog duties and will be spending more time with the second K9 in the family. Alexa, a Golden retriever and Labrador retriever mix, joined the family two years ago for William’s older brother, Dylan.

Alexa is also trained but wasn’t quite suited for work as a service dog and was adopted from the same organization as one of their “fabulous flunkies.”

Therapy Dog Stress

“I know that you think you are doing something good, but all of you people who are associated with therapy  dog activities are actually engaged in a form of animal abuse!”

That startling statement was made to me by a colleague who is a clinical psychologist. She went on to justify her conclusion, arguing, “I know the scientific literature says that animal-assisted therapy using dogs improves the mental state of people, but you are ignoring the stress that is imposed on the dogs that are providing the emotional support.

“Look at it this way—you are a therapy dog and suddenly this stranger is reaching out to touch you, perhaps awkwardly or roughly because of their state of anxiety or physical infirmities, and you have to allow it. Don’t you think that that might be stressful?

“Furthermore, you are put in unfamiliar environments and exposed to all sorts of unfamiliar items, such as wheelchairs, crutches, and unusual flooring such as tile or metal grids. Then there are the sudden unexpected noises around you caused by medical personnel—or if it is a group therapy session, there may be many people all talking at the same time. That kind of chaos will certainly be stressful for a dog.

“When we are training human therapists to deal with nervous and uneasy people, we recognize that the task of the therapist involves more than just relieving the anxiety and negative emotions of the patient. Individuals who are under stress radiate their negative emotions like an aura. Their negative halo is like a cloud of contagion and can raise the stress level of anyone around them—including their therapist. That means that we must train clinical psychologists in techniques that they can use to minimize their own negative emotions during therapy sessions. We know that dogs can read human emotions and they do react to them, but unlike human psychologists, therapy dogs are not trained to use methods to reduce the stress that they may be feeling. In effect, animal-assisted therapy is simply a procedure where the stress in the human is reduced at the expense of raising the stress level and emotional distress of the dogs. To my mind, it is just another case of humans deriving benefits from activities that abuse animals.”

This is not the first time that I have heard such arguments. However, if what my colleague was suggesting is true, that would raise some morally worrisome issues for people and organizations who advocate the use of therapy dogs. It is important to note that the folks involved with therapy dogs have been aware of the potential for their animals to become stressed. Most of the major organizations which certify or monitor therapy dogs provide guidelines so that dog handlers may be able to recognize stress in their canine therapists.

While most of the research involving therapy dogs has looked at the benefits derived by the human patient, recently researchers have begun to study how therapy dogs react emotionally when they are doing their work. The newest piece of research to look at levels of stress when therapy dogs are dealing with patients comes from a team of investigators headed by Stephanie Clark working in the laboratory of Arya Mohabbat at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

It involved a group of 19 certified therapy dogs. These dogs were working in a clinic for fibromyalgia patients. Fibromyalgia is a nasty disorder which is characterized by widespread muscular and skeletal pain that can be accompanied by fatigue, sleep disorders, and mood issues. There is some research that suggests that fibromyalgia actually amplifies painful sensations by altering the way a person’s brain processes pain signals. This means that these patients hurt a lot, and this pain results in stress and anxiety which the therapy dogs seem to be able to help to relieve somewhat.

One of the important features of this newest study is that it involved a number of different physiological measures of stress in the dogs. To begin with, samples of saliva were taken to measure the concentration of the hormones cortisol and oxytocin both before and after each therapy session. Cortisol levels are considered to be direct measures of stress, so elevated concentrations of cortisol are a sign of anxiety and negative feelings. High levels of oxytocin, on the other hand, are associated with positive feelings, and when the concentration of this hormone drops we assume that it indicates that an individual is experiencing a negative emotional state.

Prior to each therapy session, the dogs were also fitted out with a heart rate monitor. A variety of indicators of emotional state can be derived from measures of cardiac activity. The most important of these is simply the heart rate itself, which increases when an individual is experiencing stress. Other measures, such as heart rate variability were also recorded.

In addition, the temperature of the right ear of each dog was taken both before and after each therapy session. This might seem like a strange thing to measure—however, it makes sense because the brain processes emotions asymmetrically. Specifically, activity changes in the right hemisphere of the brain have been observed to increase when an individual is under emotional stress. This increased right hemisphere activity is reflected by a rise in the right ear temperature.

These multiple physiological measures should tell us if the therapy dogs are experiencing stress when they interact with patients.

The results of this experiment do not show any rise in the stress level of the therapy dogs as measured by changes in hormonal levels. There was no significant rise in the cortisol levels of the dogs, nor was there a drop in its counterpart oxytocin. This suggests that these dogs were not stressed by their participation in therapy sessions with patients.

Perhaps the results which would be most surprising to my colleague, and most comforting to the people who work with therapy dogs, came from the measures of heart rate and right ear temperature. Comparing the data from before and immediately following the therapy sessions, the heart rates of the dogs were reduced and there was a drop in the right ear temperature. This suggests that the dogs were actually in a more relaxed state after their interactions with the patient than they were before.

At the very least, these results show that there was no increase in stress in the dogs as a result of their therapeutic activities, and perhaps even that the dogs benefit emotionally from such interactions.

Anecdotally, I can say that my own two dogs, who sometimes serve as therapy dogs with a program in Vancouver, Canada, seem to be quite happy to get a chance to interact with people in a therapeutic setting. The moment that they see me pulling out the bag that contains the special leashes, badges, and halters that are associated with such therapy sessions, they begin to dance about near the door in what appears to me to be happy expectancy.

If my colleague had been correct, and if the data had shown that therapy dogs were suffering from stress because of their contact with anxious and fearful people, this certainly would have presented me with a moral dilemma. Fortunately, however, the data not only suggest that dogs are not stressed when they are called upon to provide emotional support to people, but they may actually feel better while they are engaging in their clinically helpful activities.

Autism Therapy Dogs

One of the most common struggles for people living with autism spectrum disorder is socializing with others. Previous research has shown that dogs can serve as social catalysts, and children with autism may feel more comfortable speaking and socializing in the presence of a therapy dog. However, the answer may not be that simple.

In a new study, researchers at the University of Missouri found that while therapy dogs may benefit some children on the autism spectrum, they should not be seen as a one-size-fits-all answer for children struggling with social communication.

Courtney Jorgenson, a doctoral student in the MU College of Arts and Science, collaborated with Casey Clay, former assistant professor of special education and researcher at the MU Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, to study the impact of a therapy dog on the verbal communication of children with autism as they were speaking with a therapist. They found that some of the children spoke with the therapist more often in the presence of Rhett, a black Labrador Retriever at the Thompson Center, or when they were able to earn time playing with Rhett. Others spoke with the therapist more when they were able to earn time playing with a favorite toy, such as an iPad.

“The autism spectrum is incredibly broad, so what might be an effective intervention technique for one child might not necessarily be the best option for another,” Jorgenson said. “With so many different options available, this research can help parents make the best choices for their child.”

Therapy dogs go through extensive training to provide affection and comfort with a calming influence. Jorgenson recommends parents of children with autism speak with their doctor to ensure the benefits that therapy dogs provide will align with the reasons for wanting one and not assume that a therapy dog will benefit every child equally.

Research has also shown that dogs can help reduce stress. As children on the autism spectrum tend to have higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to children who are developing typically, therapy dogs can potentially be used to help them feel more comfortable in social environments.

“Petting a dog can raise your oxytocin levels, the same hormone that gets released when you hug a loved one,” Jorgenson said. “There’s a long way to go in figuring out how dogs can best support children on the autism spectrum, but this research can help identify which kids might benefit the most.”

“Evaluating preference for and reinforcing efficacy of a therapy dog to increase verbal statements” was recently published in Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Funding was provided by the Organization for Autism Research. Rhett, the Thompson Center’s therapy dog, was trained and provided by Duo Dogs, Inc. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.