Pet Therapy (also known as Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) or Animal Facilitated Therapy (AFT)) are therapies in which animals, usually dogs, visit with individuals or groups of people in a private or communal setting for example a hospital, convalescent home or old age home. Dogs who work in pet therapy settings are generally assigned to a specific therapy protocol under the supervision of a professional (Animal Facilitated Therapy) or a more generalized setting as in Animal Assisted Therapy. Pets are used to help heal ill or disabled people and speed and enhance the healing process, but how does pet therapy work?.
Animal Facilitated Therapy
AFT is an animal enhanced physical therapy setting in which the patient would be, for example, asked to pick up a brush and brush the dog five times. Later the patient would learn to attach a leash to a collar and groom the dog completely. In this way, pet therapy helps the patient to re-learn skills.
In the case where the patient has social or mental problems the patient may be asked to concentrate his or her attention on the dog for a certain number of seconds. The time is gradually increased to improve the patient’s attention skills and abilities. Later the patient may have full interaction with the dog. Records are always kept so that the effectiveness of the therapy may be evaluated later.
Animal Assisted Therapy
In this form of pet therapy the dog makes generalized visits to the home or hospital and are actually owned by volunteers i.e. the dogs are pets. These volunteers usually don’t have any special skills or training in therapeutic techniques but the dogs and people are skilled socially and well behaved.
The aim of AAT is to make the lives of those who are ill or undergoing treatments a little brighter and more pleasant. Although the patients do achieve a therapeutic effect from the visits there is no formal therapy plan.
