Category Archives: Animal therapy

Feed Your Dog, Feed Your Soul

05 Mar 2016

Of all the patients I have seen in my 40 years as a psychoanalyst, Daniel was the strangest. He was the most inaccessible, inwardly tormented and infuriating man I have ever known, and yet he stayed in therapy with me for over a decade, calling faithfully every week — he insisted that his work schedule precluded coming in person — even though he spent many of those sessions in silence or addressed me as if I were inanimate. He drove me crazy, he haunted me and he moved me, sometimes all in the same session.

How a Dog Helped Me Manage My Anxiety and Depression

01 Mar 2016

I first began experiencing anxiety and depression at the age of 14 after being bullied at school for years. While at first it would come and go, anxiety and depression eventually became a constant presence in my life. Mental health issues were like a perpetual cough that eventually starts to get better, only to come back worse than before. Only unlike a cough, where usually I am still able to function, anxiety and depression hits like a ton of bricks and even the idea of getting out of bed seems to be a goal that gets to be less and less attainable. As time passed, more and more of my days started to be spent paralyzed by endless thoughts of regrets of the past and worries for the future.

When I brought my little corgi, Buddy, home in November of 2014, I didn’t realize at the time how much he would truly change my life. But it didn’t happen right away. Once the new puppy excitement went away, the anxiety and depression crept back as it always had. I woke up one morning and felt those familiar feelings again; the weight on my shoulders, the nausea in my stomach, the feelings of hopelessness and worry. I knew that the anxiety and depression had come back hard and felt depleted. I didn’t want to get out of bed. It felt impossible. I turned to pull the covers back over my head and give up for the day. What I always did. That’s when I came face to face with animal therapy and Buddy.

Lost a Pet? How To Help Your Other Pets Grieve

28 Feb 2016

When a family pet dies, naturally the humans in the household grieve the death of their beloved companion, which often serves as a form of animal therapy for folks with mental illness. However, surviving animals in multi-pet households may also react to the loss in a variety of ways.

If grief is measured by changes in behavior, then grieving is common throughout the animal world.

In her book “How Animals Grieve,” Barbara J. King, a professor of anthropology at the College of William & Mary, defines grief like this: “When a survivor animal acts in ways that are visibly distressed or altered from the usual routine in the aftermath of the death of a companion animal who had mattered emotionally to him or her.” King cites studies and observations that show that animals in the wild, from elephants to birds, exhibit grieving behaviors, as do household pets.

The Companion Animal Mourning Project, a study conducted by the ASCPA, found that more than 60 percent of both dogs and cats exhibited four or more behavioral changes after the death of a fellow pet in the household. Changes include eating less or possibly not at all, craving more attention from their owners, changes in vocalization (barking or meowing more or less than usual) and changes in sleeping places or other habits.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/living/pets/article60433361.html#storylink=cpy

Animal Therapy For Humans?

24 Feb 2016

Ryan Lively first became interested in the human brain when she was a high school junior studying anatomy at Annapolis Area Christian School’s Upper School Campus in Severn. Now a senior, it was a “no-brainer” that Lively would select the human brain as the subject of her Senior Practicum, a year-long project that is a requirement for graduation from AACS. What made Lively’s project unique was the way she incorporated five dogs from Pets-On-Wheels into the brain study. This is a form of animal therapy, which is a mental health program used to help people with such issues as mental illness, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and more.

Man’s Lost Therapy Dog Found After Two Months Thanks to Social Media

17 Feb 2016

In the six years since Nik Glaser adopted a golden doodle puppy named Kramer, the animal has become more than a pet. He’s become a therapy pet. “I have clinical anxiety, and I go through phases where it can be overwhelming,” Glaser, 30, explained. “With Kramer around, I rarely get to the stage of having panic attacks. He’s very intuitive. If he sees I’m getting agitated, he’ll put his head on my lap or reach out with his paw. “It’s a subtle thing, but it calms me.”