Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Therapy pets

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Therapy pets

    So...I've been thinking about the idea of a therapy pet for Sharkbait for a while...

    Part of the reason we got the kitty was for him, and a cat-as-pet works in an apartment more than a dog-as-pet would...cats are normally fairly easy pets to own (in terms of training and maintenance), if they have play time they are ok on their own and all with less issues that dogs who really *need* people. And his behavior around the cat is almost a 180--he's calmer, and when he's upset the cat is pretty mellow and lets him hold him and pet him, etc. Plus, he can focus to play with the cat in a way he really only does at certain high-stimulation activities.

    The problem is that cats aren't dogs. They don't have the same intuition when it comes to people (as a species), in terms of emotion and behavior, and they don't have the same skill set in dealing with people (as a species)...with a cat, its hit or miss. So far, Smitty (Smittens) and Sharkbait are A-ok, but when it comes to actually helping him with some of his challenging areas, a cat isn't going to cut it (and, tbh, somehow this cat ended up being mine and Phee's, though he plays with Scott and puts up with Collin).

    The process for a therapy dog takes a long time...we aren't even close to the application stage or anything, more in the consideration stage (for us) if its something to persue, something we can manage, and if it would help our situation. I'm pretty sure we qualify for these folks...but darn! Expensive...

    Does anyone have experience with working (therapy) dogs? Or the organizations that work with them? Any ideas?
    Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
    sigpic

    #2
    Re: Therapy pets

    I know there is a program somewhere on the East Coast (and I'm thinking they said Virginia) that rescues German Shepherds and does specialized training with them. It might be something like this http://www.k-9services.net/ though that is in Florida and I'm not exactly sure if they do Service Dog training, the website hints that they might, but I didn't see anything specifically. Someone I knew when I worked at the casino bought a dog through a program like that (I think they said it was in Virginia). They bought theirs as a protection dog and I think they said they paid $500 for him. But they said they do service training as well.

    You might look into humane societies that have actual trainers and see if any of them would know of any programs that might help, or if they would be able to train a dog for you from the shelter. It may be a more affordable option.
    We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

    I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
    It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
    Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
    -Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Curse

    Service to your fellows is the root of peace.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Therapy pets

      Originally posted by thalassa View Post
      So...I've been thinking about the idea of a therapy pet for Sharkbait for a while...

      Part of the reason we got the kitty was for him, and a cat-as-pet works in an apartment more than a dog-as-pet would...cats are normally fairly easy pets to own (in terms of training and maintenance), if they have play time they are ok on their own and all with less issues that dogs who really *need* people. And his behavior around the cat is almost a 180--he's calmer, and when he's upset the cat is pretty mellow and lets him hold him and pet him, etc. Plus, he can focus to play with the cat in a way he really only does at certain high-stimulation activities.

      The problem is that cats aren't dogs. They don't have the same intuition when it comes to people (as a species), in terms of emotion and behavior, and they don't have the same skill set in dealing with people (as a species)...with a cat, its hit or miss. So far, Smitty (Smittens) and Sharkbait are A-ok, but when it comes to actually helping him with some of his challenging areas, a cat isn't going to cut it (and, tbh, somehow this cat ended up being mine and Phee's, though he plays with Scott and puts up with Collin).

      The process for a therapy dog takes a long time...we aren't even close to the application stage or anything, more in the consideration stage (for us) if its something to persue, something we can manage, and if it would help our situation. I'm pretty sure we qualify for these folks...but darn! Expensive...

      Does anyone have experience with working (therapy) dogs? Or the organizations that work with them? Any ideas?
      I only know of programs here in Australia, which is not that useful to you.

      Plus I wanted to say that cats as therapy pets can and do work. The reason dogs are more common and more reliable as therapy pets is not because they have more instinct, intuition or skill with humans... it's because their natural social structure lends itself better to what we're looking for in therapy pets. Their neediness and desire to have a harmious social group makes them more in-your-face and more likely to try to appease humans with high emotion. It's easier for most humans to form social bonds with a dog than with other species, but not all dogs are suited to being therapy pets.

      The point is, if you want a therapy pet, you don't need just any pet off the street, or any old service dog... you need a selected and trained pet. There are therapy pet programs that use cats, rabbits, ferrets and horses... and some of those will be far superior to a random dog. So don't discount non-canine species just because they aren't dogs. You might be able to find something that suits your house and lifestyle better than a dog will. And I'm sure you know that a significant part of a therapy pet's benefit is the routine (aka stability), responsibility and non-human interaction (interaction without expectation and judgement)... you can provide that with mice or a hermit crab, for example.

      I know that you will (and probably have) research this to death, and so know all this already. But I've just seen too many 'therapy dogs' at work who people got from the pet store because they couldn't afford a real one but figured that Labradors are good for kids, easy to train and are used for Guide Dogs, right? So what could go wrong, we'll just train our own therapy dog. It just doesn't work that way. But just because a dog isn't a good option for your lifestyle doesn't mean a therapy pet is out of the question, or that you have to force yourself into a dog... make sure you're also researching alternatives. Is there a visiting therapy dog in your area (like the ones who visit nursing homes and hospitals)? Is there a Riding For The Disabled program that also takes on ADHD and autistic kids? There are other things you might find useful that don't involve getting your own therapy dog.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Therapy pets

        Originally posted by Rae'ya View Post
        The point is, if you want a therapy pet, you don't need just any pet off the street, or any old service dog... you need a selected and trained pet. There are therapy pet programs that use cats, rabbits, ferrets and horses... and some of those will be far superior to a random dog. So don't discount non-canine species just because they aren't dogs. You might be able to find something that suits your house and lifestyle better than a dog will. And I'm sure you know that a significant part of a therapy pet's benefit is the routine (aka stability), responsibility and non-human interaction (interaction without expectation and judgement)... you can provide that with mice or a hermit crab, for example.
        No, we are tentatively looking into an actual, trained therapy dog from a reputable therapy training program...but maybe not. Its just an idea at this point. The advantage of a dog is that it could potentially go to school with him if need be. I'm not sure if it would be necessary, or not...tbh, I think by the time we could get one, it wouldn't be needed... And I think (by the time we could get one, at least if Collin is anything like the Hubby or my brother, the worst of his behaviors might be minimized) its likely that the skills of a therapy dog is more something we could have used right now (like a year or two ago, for the next 6 years). I think just having a pet (other than our hamster) in general has been helpful, but its not really directed helpfulness, if that makes sense? Maybe we need to work on making Collin more directly responsible for the cat...

        There is a riding program here--its basically psychotherapy while horseback riding...its $75 for a 45 minute session, none of it covered by insurance.
        Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
        sigpic

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Therapy pets

          Originally posted by thalassa View Post
          No, we are tentatively looking into an actual, trained therapy dog from a reputable therapy training program...but maybe not. Its just an idea at this point. The advantage of a dog is that it could potentially go to school with him if need be. I'm not sure if it would be necessary, or not...tbh, I think by the time we could get one, it wouldn't be needed... And I think (by the time we could get one, at least if Collin is anything like the Hubby or my brother, the worst of his behaviors might be minimized) its likely that the skills of a therapy dog is more something we could have used right now (like a year or two ago, for the next 6 years). I think just having a pet (other than our hamster) in general has been helpful, but its not really directed helpfulness, if that makes sense? Maybe we need to work on making Collin more directly responsible for the cat...

          There is a riding program here--its basically psychotherapy while horseback riding...its $75 for a 45 minute session, none of it covered by insurance.
          That makes perfect sense, and that's exactly what I was trying to get at. I often see people cutting corners on this, and what they end up with was an untrained pet they didn't really want, rather than a therapy animal.

          The way I understand it is that outside of an actual therapy pet, you'll get more benefit from a small pet that HE picked out, researched and is 100% responsible for than you will from a larger family pet. So that means something small and interactive like a hamster, mice, a rat or a budgie (parakeet?), which is completely his, which has consistent and predictable routines and behaviours, which he can handle, and which you supervise him caring for. The danger is always that kids lose interest and that it's often harder for the rest of the family to pick up the interest when it's something small rather than a dog or a cat. Plus parents often forget to engage in the relationship between the kids and the small pet like they would with a dog or a cat, which reduces the kids' interest furthet. But that's not the same as a therapy pet and wont have the same benefits,... it's just how to maximise the benefit of a household pet.

          I'm no expert on this... animal behaviour is my thing, not kids with special needs. But pets as therapy comes up in my animal behaviour stuff sometimes. So that's my understanding of therapy pets vs pets vs using your pet as a pseudo-therapy-pet.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Therapy pets

            Just to say:

            My 20 year old daughter has a pet mouse who is practically her best friend. Active and playful, enjoys human company.
            Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Therapy pets

              Well...I guess its really more a service dog that we are talking about than a therapy animal (the former being something that is considered a legal right under the ADA, in terms of school, housing, etc--which Sharkbait falls under, and the latter not)...

              For example, an autism service dog can be trained to hold and/or retrieve kids that have a tendency to wander or bolt, to halt or divert self-harming behavior (as well as non harmful, self stimulating behavior like flapping, spinning, etc), to sense and divert anxiety attacks before they happen, to sense gluten or other food additives that the person might be allergic to, to help with things like bathing, being in public. They can even be trained to remember when a person needs to take their meds (either at a certain time of day or a particular physical cue from the person and to cue them--bringing their meds, or "herding" them to the area where their meds are kept, etc (dogs have pretty good internal clocks).

              ADHD service dogs (which are considered a type of psychiatric service dog) can be trained in similar ways to do things like medication reminders, redirect certain behaviors associated with severe ADHD (some of them are quite similar to some autistic stimming behaviors--Sharkbait flaps when he's excited and spins when he's bored), to cue the person when they zone (in inattentive and combined types of ADHD), to recognize anxiety attacks before they happen (anxiety and ADHD show up together often...Collin has both ADHD and anxiety with some minor OCD behaviors), even to interrupt some OCD behaviors.
              Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
              sigpic

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Therapy pets

                Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                Well...I guess its really more a service dog that we are talking about than a therapy animal (the former being something that is considered a legal right under the ADA, in terms of school, housing, etc--which Sharkbait falls under, and the latter not)...

                For example, an autism service dog can be trained to hold and/or retrieve kids that have a tendency to wander or bolt, to halt or divert self-harming behavior (as well as non harmful, self stimulating behavior like flapping, spinning, etc), to sense and divert anxiety attacks before they happen, to sense gluten or other food additives that the person might be allergic to, to help with things like bathing, being in public. They can even be trained to remember when a person needs to take their meds (either at a certain time of day or a particular physical cue from the person and to cue them--bringing their meds, or "herding" them to the area where their meds are kept, etc (dogs have pretty good internal clocks).

                ADHD service dogs (which are considered a type of psychiatric service dog) can be trained in similar ways to do things like medication reminders, redirect certain behaviors associated with severe ADHD (some of them are quite similar to some autistic stimming behaviors--Sharkbait flaps when he's excited and spins when he's bored), to cue the person when they zone (in inattentive and combined types of ADHD), to recognize anxiety attacks before they happen (anxiety and ADHD show up together often...Collin has both ADHD and anxiety with some minor OCD behaviors), even to interrupt some OCD behaviors.
                I guess the hard part for you is figuring out if he's going to need an actual service dog. Because good personalised service dogs take a long time to train up, and are usually something that you are going to need for years to come. You wouldn't want to go through the process if in 3 years time it wont be needed. But how do you tell that? I have no idea... you'd know much more about this than me! If a service dog is needed, then it's needed. If a therapy animal is needed... you still want to get a proper trained one, but there's less involved than with a service dog.

                Comment

                Working...
                X