Emotional support dog, Dakota, sits patiently awaiting his owner, Roni, to throw him his ball.

By: Delaney Rosenthal

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) occurs when an animal is brought in to interact with a child or adult to help them cope with a disability or to aid in treatments for a disease. According to ManagedHealthCareConnect.com, the animal comes in with “the purpose of supporting or improving patients’ social, emotional, physical, or cognitive functioning”.  As for types of animals that participate in this form of therapy, there is a very wide variety: from  dogs, cats, and birds to pigs, horses, and dolphins.

Today, AAT is used for all kinds of different diseases and mental, or physical disabilities. Very common disabilities that pets are used for are Autism and anxiety. This is because animals can have a cognitive effect on people that helps with socializing. According to research done by E. Paul Cherniack and Arielle R. Cherniack, when a group of individuals living in a nursing home were put in therapy sessions with animals, “long conversations between alert participants were more likely to occur” than the participants of therapy sessions where animals were absent. Additionally, the presence of an animal can help victims of trauma. Following the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, they formed a law around pet therapy and the victims of the crisis. The director of animal-assisted therapy for the American Humane Society, Amy McCullough, says that this could be the first law of its kind.

The therapeutic effects of animals was first realized in the 1800s. Managed Healthcare Connect says that Florence Nightingale noticed the effects animals had on children and adults living in psychiatric institutions. In the early 1930s, Sigmund Freud believed that his dog, Jofi, could sense the tension of patients based on how close he would stand to the. Then, in the 1960s, Managed Healthcare Connect explains that Boris Levinson noticed the effect animals have on people when a nonverbal 9-year old communicated with Levinson’s dog.

While AAT has shown positive results, there are people who believe it is not a valid form of healing. Many people believe that the animals can cause disease and are transportation for bacteria and infection. They also believe that the studies done on the therapeutic effect of animals are scientifically strong enough, therefore do not prove anything. However, the positive emotional, social, and cognitive results that patients show when an animal is presence shows otherwise.