"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons."
-James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)

Animal-Assisted Therapy

Animal-assisted therapy is a process that incorporates animals to aid people’s rehabilitation. Rehabilitation in this case meaning health, social as well as educational improvements aimed at getting a people recovered and integrated in normal life as much as possible. If this sounds vague, it’s because the methods are extremely flexible and have a wide range of use. Let me explain.

dog therapy Czech Republic
One of the Helping Paws dog therapy teams - Renata and her golden retriever Dante during a visit to a mental care facility in Pilsen. An autistic boy briefly leaves his internal world and comes to give Dante a treat while his friend in a wheelchair is motivated enough to fully turn his torso. This was only the third time our dogs came for visit.

Woolfhound Badik, flat-coater retriever Arinka and dachshund Charlie perform the "positioning" technique with a disabled boy in a social care facility near Pilsen. There are two people overseeing this session, one of whom is a physiotherapist working at the facility.

Labrador retriever Dorka is warming the back of severely disabled girl named Terezka. This photo was taken after a sleepless night of crying. Her mental handicap prevents any normal communication, but her mother says the only thing Terezka understands and responds to is when she's told that the dog will come to visit. Normally, her fleeting smiles come and go based on her unpredictable internal world. These are the only times when she responds to an external stimulation and the two worlds connect.

Here, I'm scratching a dog which was trained by this mentally disabled teenage girl. The lady on my left had created a program, where mentally disabled kids, living in a facility, have (under her guidance) participated in dog training. Being able to show their dog in a public event such as this international dog show greatly boosted their self-esteem and gave them new experiences.

This is us torturing our volunteers during a morning training session at one of our courses. It's 7 a.m., miserably cold, the field is muddy and wet. I call that a dedication. Their only reward would be the beautiful sunrise, but I doubt they had a chance to notice it.

Basically, if things in your life go wrong and you end up in a hospital, treatment or social care facility for a while, your life as you know it ends within 3 months or so. Your ability to work, provide for yourself, sustain quality relationships and so on change so drastically, that once back home, you may be starting from scratch.

The entire education, health care and social care system are geared to buffer these effects and get you back on track. Or they should be, anyway. That’s called integrated rehabilitation.

But as people go through this process, the one thing missing is nature, the very thing that actually can provide some energy and motivation for them to recover or improve. Health and social care facilities tend to be so well sterilized environments. They barely have house plants. The chances to get outside are minimal.

If all these environments were more natural and, well, more humane, we probably wouldn’t need animal-assisted therapy, but for now, animals provide that missing link. They can be the ray of light in the grey reality of a life in an institution, may it be a hospital, a nursing home, an orphanage or a school for disabled kids.

I first got involved in this field in 2000 as we were developing the assistance-dog program for Helping Paws. Its wide use and potential fascinated me. It’s hard to imagine an environment where the presence of animals would not be beneficial to people in need.

As we developed our program for dog-facilitated therapies, training both volunteers and professionals who work in the institutions to incorporate animals for their therapeutic goals, I’ve gathered information from many people I met.

I met hundreds of volunteers and professionals and they are incredible. I also have a chance to cooperate with a number of true pioneers, people who have professional interest, but also deep personal commitment to actually improving the conditions in care facilities and utilizing new methods.

At some point I realized, that precisely because I’m not a therapist myself, I’m in an ideal position to do research and try to find the common threads.

Animal-assisted therapy works on so many levels, often where other therapies fail and unlike medications, it has no side effects. I have heard the word “miracle” spoken way too often, but what I’ve seen and researched certainly feels that way.

Unlike people, animals communicate in simple patterns and their straightforward manner and innocence makes them unique. There is no other therapy that provides such a bridge. Also their physical presence is important, providing for much needed sense of tenderness and sensual input. They simply provide something we as people cannot.

In our recent contacts with organizations working in other European countries and in the US, we suddenly realized that in some ways, our methods surpassed the original idea and that we actually have something to teach our neighbors. Of course, we still have a lot to learn and any cooperation in this field is very useful.

Now that the Czech Republic is a part of the European Union, we have a good chance to exchange information with many other such "pockets of activities" across the continent and unify our efforts. For two years, I worked as the vice-president of Canine Therapy Association, unfortunately, this association no longer exists.

In 2008 we realized that we want to expand the scope of our program and I co-founded a new organization, Anitera o.p.s. in which I’m still active. Anitera provides full range of services in this field from educating all involved parties, to testing animals and their handlers, linking volunteers and facilities, supporting research as well as running a public awareness program. The animal-assisted therapy providers we certified currently work in nearly a hundered facilities across the Czech Republic, but also in Slovakia. While don't do this work myself to see the smiles in the faces of their clients, I do see them progressing and coming back with many success stories. And that's what makes me happy and gives me strength for further work.

My research lead to developing a theoretical structure for the method aiming to describe and incorporate all aspects of the so-far existing types of animal-assisted therapies. I lecture, write on this subject and regularly teach courses for volunteers, professionals and program managers. I also consult university students who write theses on the subject. I’m currently working on a book that will summarize this system and provide a basic educational material. There is still so much to be done and so much to learn, but I see little miracles happen and firmly believe we only saw a glimpse of this method's true potential.