 This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through AllCEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation. We're going to be talking about animal therapy today. And, you know, obviously animals are near and dear to my heart living on a farm. You know, these are my kids and the animals that they've interacted with. But you can see, you know, donkeys can be very relaxing when they're not trying to teach you something. And Haley does really well with the mini donkeys. We don't have any full size and, you know, cats, birds, they can all teach something. And we're going to talk about how pretty much any animal can be used as animal therapy. We just need to figure out exactly what we're trying to accomplish and then decide how to go about that. So we're going to start out by defining animal assisted therapy and differentiating it from animal assisted activities. We'll explore the research around animal assisted therapy just a little bit. I don't want to bore you. And we'll review some general cautions kind of at the end. We're going to talk about, for the most part, a lot of techniques that you can use or think about using. And I really want to encourage you, like I said on Tuesday, I want to encourage you to think about and share your ideas. Even if you're just brainstorming on the fly, ways you could integrate animals into a treatment plan. So animal assisted activities or pet therapy uses animals and integrates them into activities to facilitate motivation, education, recreation, encouraging casual interaction without following a specific set of criteria or goals. So, you know, encouraging people to take their animals to go visit nursing homes for some people that the animal visits is going to cheer them up. For other people, the animal visits, it may encourage them to use some of their gross motor skills. For other people, it may encourage them to be more verbal. You know, it's just whatever the animal brings out in that person is what's happening. Animal assisted activities are also like during finals week and what they call dead week on campus. Now they sometimes bring dogs into the counseling center so people can come by and just pet the animal and kind of chill out. And there's really no treatment goal. We're not trying to do anything except for make a relaxing environment available to people. Animal assisted therapy on the other hand is intentional and therapeutic. Animal's role is integral in assisting with mental health, speech or occupational therapy or physical therapy goals and can augment cognitive, physical, social and or emotional well being. So, for example, and PT is really easy to pull examples from. If a physical therapist brings in a dog to work with someone who has Parkinson's syndrome to help them throw the ball and work on their gross motor skills. You know, obviously that dog is integral into girl into that activity. And it's a lot more fun for the person to throw a ball for a dog as opposed to throwing it against the wall or something. So what are the benefits of animal assisted therapy reduced blood pressure and this is true to a large extent for animal assisted activities as well. So when people have dogs in their house, when they have animals that they love that pay attention to them, a lot of these things are true reduced blood pressure. Animals force us to get outside of ourselves and focus on them. If you've ever had a dog, you know, when you're having a bad day or you're feeling blue, a lot of times the dog will come over and give you kisses or just kind of sit down. And that is that unconditional positive regard helps people get outside of themselves. They start thinking about the dog and pet in the dog, which releases oxytocin, our bonding hormone. And it also helps reduce blood pressure. Animal assisted therapy can also help people understand unconditional positive regard. A lot of times in animal therapy and even animal assisted activities, we will use animals who are imperfect. We're not going to use the animals who are the show dogs or the, you know, show cats or whatever. I mean, you could but you can also use a three legged dog. And, you know, people will love this dog, despite the fact that it has three legs so we can help people under develop an understanding for the fact that creatures deserve love. Regardless of whether they're perfect because nobody's perfect. You know, there's a lot of three legged dogs out there and one eyed cats or blind cats. There are actually rescues that specialize in that particular problem and blind horses. These are fewer and further between, but our old neighbor had a blind horse and, you know, she learned how to get around and she learned to overcome her obstacles in life. And she seemed to be overall a pretty happy horse. So understanding and helping people, you know, see themselves potentially in the animal. They see the challenges that the animal is going through and overcoming instead of just laying down and giving up. Animals can teach biofeedback and mindfulness. I know, especially for dogs, when you are upset or angry or dysphoric in some way, but also sometimes really, really excited. So they have a difficult time differentiating. They will get equally upset. So when you're excitatory neurotransmitters are going, the dog will generally get excited as well. When we are at home, my husband and I work together and sometimes we'll be drinking our coffee in the morning and we'll start talking about something about work. And, you know, I may get stressed out voice. And as soon as I get a stressed out voice, Brewster comes over and sits on my lap and just kind of looks at me like, Why are you talking like that? And a lot of times I won't even realize that I'm using a stressed out voice. I haven't raised my voice or anything. But he notices such incremental changes. He's excellent for biofeedback because he comes over and sits on my lap. I'm like, Oh, must have sounded stressed out. Okay. You know, take a deep breath and back up. And animals can do this for a lot of our clients who have anger issues, who have anxiety issues, etc. Help them become more aware when they're just barely starting to go down that road so they can intervene early. Instead of waiting until they're in a full blown, you know, episode. Stress reduction and laughter. Dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, ducks. You know, I think every animal we've ever had has always provided some amount of laughter. They have found that dogs and cats in a therapeutic environment can provide a lot of breaking the ice type stress reduction and laughter for, especially for children, but to a certain extent for adults who come in and they start out by playing with the animal because it again gets them outside of themselves. It takes away the, you know, clinical nature, stigma, stigmatized nature of counseling, and it kind of gets them in a comfortable place. And a lot of people kind of judge how safe a place is by the animals. Animals that are happy and healthy and welcoming, communicate an idea that the humans associated with them are also safe human beings to be around. Increased physical activity. Not so much with cats unless you have a cat like mine who plays fetch and then it's just that one arm, you know, we don't have to go very far. But with dogs, you're going to go out and you're going to walk the dog, you're going to play with the dog, you're going to throw the frisbee for the dog. Dogs do not, most dogs do not take well to being cooped up inside all the time. So it gets people to get out, which helps get them sunlight so they can set their circadian rhythms. It can help them be around other people so they can address feelings of isolation or social anxiety. It can help them get in better physical shape so they have greater stamina and self efficacy. Animals teach, especially horses and dogs and donkeys, you know, equines and dogs, teach the importance of consistency and clear communication. Now I say this, I have, you know, some of our cats are really trainable, but cats are our hit or miss as far as how trainable they will be. But dogs and equines tend to be very, very communicative in what they do. But it's important, we had a border collie that lived next door and we used hand signals to communicate with it so we didn't have to scream across the paddock. And you know, this was stop. But when I first did it, the first couple of times I did it, I didn't do this, I did this. I still had my fist out, but it was at a different angle. Dozer didn't recognize that. He's looked at me like I was crazy. And Dave pointed out that Dozer will even notice, you know, five or 10 degrees difference in the hand signal and it doesn't compute with him. So it's important to be clear in what you communicate, either verbally or nonverbally and consistent. You know, this needs to mean stop every time, not this means stop sometimes, sit other times. This has to mean the same thing. An animal therapy can help decrease learned helplessness behaviors and increase a sense of control over self and environment. You know, if a person feels ineffective at doing anything ineffective at communicating, well we can develop a treatment plan where they communicate with the animal to teach it to do something. We can if they feel ineffective in relationships and you know they don't know how to talk to people. If they're walking with their dog and eventually going to a dog park because dogs can be do things you don't really expect at a dog park, you can imagine. So generally we start out by walking dogs in very low key but public places like around our office complex here. There's not a lot of people, it's not like we're going to a park where there's 150 people that could come over and go oh what a cute doggy and overwhelm somebody with social anxiety. But we take them out and you know the persons walking their dog and usually when people see a dog, they will smile at whoever's walking the dog and you know they may not come over and pet it, or they may say hey can I come pet your dog. So is a general gradual introduction into working into talking with other people and becoming more sociable. Animals can act as a bridge by which therapists can reach patients who are withdrawn and cooperative and uncommunicative. Sometimes kids, especially but some adults, you know, they don't want to talk to you at all. But if you give them time with the dog, you know, and you know, let them hang out, they may start actually talking to the dog or to the horse and telling them things that are more personal and more sensitive to them. It's also something that you can do in order to establish engagement and rapport. If you're both playing with the dog, if you're both engaged in training the dog to do something, you're communicating, you're modeling assertive behaviors, you're modeling consistency. And once you've developed that that trust and the person that you're working with knows you're not going to be hypercritical or whatever. That can work. You can also use the animal and this is more animal and animal assisted activity, but you can use it as a motivator. You know, if you come to your appointments and participate, then, you know, you can play with the dog, you can pet the dog during the appointments and play with it for 30 minutes after. So animals can be used in a variety of different ways. Participants interacting with the animals were often more inclined to smile and demonstrate pleasure, and we're more sociable and relaxed with other participants. There's a group of people out there. And, you know, sometimes we do this with hippotherapy or equines. When we bring 10 people, eight or 10 people out to the barn, the barn, and they all get a chance to work with the horses or the donkeys that are out there. And when we're working with them gave them a chance to smile. And, you know, I don't know about your situation at our barn. We have, you know, a couple of barn cats and the ducks and the chickens and generally there's something that catches people, people's attention and helps them smile and interact a little bit more. More sensitive issues can often be rendered less incendiary when an animal is involved. Very intense. If you are pouring out your heart and talking about the most humiliating thing of your life or the most degrading experience you've had, or being victimized or whatever it is, and having to sit there and look somebody directly in the eye. You don't have anything to do with your hands. You feel very naked, if you will. They found, especially a lot of the research has been done with horses, but dogs can do the same thing if they're sitting on the person's lap. But when the person is able to interact with the dog and be petting the dog and not having to make or the horse and not having to make direct eye contact with the therapist, they're talking to the therapist, but they're not having to look directly in your eyes. It's easier to talk about some of those things that people find more shameful or stressful to go over. A multisensory aspect is also available when the animal is involved, increasing the level of attention and interest of the client who is active or struggles with focus or attention. You never know what a dog's going to do. I mean, generally the dogs you're working with are well trained, but the person who is encountering this dog for the first time, you know, everything they do is a little bit new. And maybe they're still in the down position, but they roll over and their lips fall back. Mine does that occasionally. And he looks like an alligator. But there's always something. So a person who has ADHD, for example, can focus on things that they're really interested in. They can focus and the dog or the horse or whatever can give the person that thing to focus on while they're talking to you. And you find that a lot of times clients who have difficulty filtering out extraneous stimuli are much more focused if both of you are working together towards some sort of goal with the animal. So which animals can be used? Any. They actually did some research that found that people's blood pressure went down when they just watched a fish tank and they compared it to a fish tank without fish and a fish tank with fish. And the fish, just the constant movement of the fish and watching them is sort of hypnotic. And they found that people's blood pressure decreased significantly, which is probably why they have fish tanks in dentist offices. It's a lot of times guinea pigs can be used in environments like classrooms or schools where you can't have a dog or a cat. You have small space things that you need to consider. Dogs, cats, rabbits, again rabbits can be kept in a larger cage, but they don't have the same requirements. Rabbits can be a little bit more challenging because like guinea pigs, they're very delicate and rabbits can break their backs really easily. So it's important to figure out, you know, the people you're working with, number one, whether they're going to be afraid of breaking the rabbit because some people just see your rabbit and they're like, oh, I don't want to break it. Others will look at a rabbit and, you know, just kind of be not sure what to do with it. So think about the population that you're working with. And we're going to talk later in the presentation about other cautionary things with animals, including, you know, how people perceive animals. Horses are also huge for animal therapy. They are big animals. But when you actually get on a horse and start riding it and you have control over this, you know, thousand pound animal and you realize that you're safe and you are in control. It can help people develop a sense of self-efficacy. And even just petting a horse, a lot of times, you know, when I'm upset, I'll go out and I'll pet the donkeys. They're not huge. They're only about 400 pounds each. But I'll go out and I'll pet them. And no matter what mood I'm in, they're in the same mood. They are just very chill. They're just like, okay, you can pet me. It's all good. And they can bear the brunt, if you will, of my emotional reaction. So it's safe and they're calming and they're grounding. And they did do some work with dolphins. So, you know, you can use any animal. In our practices, it's probably going to be more practical to focus on dogs or if you've got to barn horses. But, you know, you can consider other things. If you work with a client who has attention issues or one that tends to have a lot of anxiety issues, having a large fish tank in the office can also be helpful. Not a beta, because the betas and the bowls, they just kind of sit there and stare at you. But the fish that are swimming around, it can give somebody something to focus on when they start to get upset or anxious, or if they're having difficulties maintaining focus. You can both look at the fish tank and that can help them, you know, weed out extraneous stimuli. So horses. Cult hippotherapy, not sure why, because they're not hippos, but okay. Using horse movement to complement therapy increases self-awareness. So obviously this is more of a PT thing, physical therapy. When somebody's sitting on a horse, you have to, you know, keep a tight core. You can't just be like, slopping all over the place. You have to hold a strong posture. But you develop trust and respect. Or what we call join up. When we work with the donkeys, like I said, they're mini donkeys, so they could still hurt you, but they're not as overwhelming as like a Clyde stale. But we talk about the fact that equines are prey animals. They're vegetarians. They are eaten by other things. They don't really have a lot of ways to defend themselves besides kicking. So they feel very threatened and humans, you know, are a predator. So when you first meet a lot of equines, they're not too keen on you. They're kind of checking you out. Like, are you a safe person or not? So I help people understand, you know, safety and earning trust. And we start talking about, you know, the relationship between the human and the animal, the animal's reaction, and then we generalize that to their life. You know, how do you earn trust with people? How do you decide who is safe? How do you develop that, start to develop that relationship? You don't just walk up to somebody in Panera that you've never met before and give them a big old hug and say, hey, good to meet you. You'd probably get arrested. So why do we do that with animals? And we want people to become more aware of boundaries. There's a lot of times, and I'm guilty of it, especially with dogs. You know, I want to go up as soon as I see it. Oh, hey puppy, let me give you a hug. Think about what wrapping your arms around the neck of a prey animal means. You know, they feel very helpless. So we want to help people understand what their nonverbals communicate, what their verbals communicate. They want, they can learn about appropriate boundaries and spacing. You don't want to get too close at first. One of our dogs, Brewster, doesn't like it if you walk up to him and then you lean over to pet him unless he really trusts you. Because that's, you know, a trigger point for him. He's a foster, so I'm not, or was a foster. So I'm not sure what he went through before he came to us, but I know that's a trigger for him. So, you know, we talk about that. But then joining up with equines. You know, sometimes one of the best things that you can do is to just sit down in the field. And especially with smaller equines, with larger, you stand. And we will just hang out in the field and sit down and we'll go about talking about our own stuff. And once they determine that we're not threatening, a lot of times the girls will come up and start sniffing us and going, hey, what's going on? You know, they've determined on their time schedule that, you know, okay, you know, you seem like you're not threatening. Let's see what's going on. And that's what we call joining up. We wait for them to come up and generally they will approach you from behind. And we talk before it happens, we talk about why do they do that? Well, because it's a whole lot safer to approach a predator from behind than head on. You can develop trust and respect through petting and feeding. You know, initially most animals are not going to walk up and let you pet them, you know, unless they're just really super awesome animals. And I discourage that anyway, even though my animals are very calm and used to it and trained to be good with good around people, not all animals are. So I don't want people to, you know, get used to my animals that you can just pretty much do anything with. And they're just like, okay, no problem. And then go into Home Depot and there's some dog walking with their owner and do the same thing because that dog may not be as receptive. We can address personalization and exploring dialectics when we're working with animals. Personalization, the dog isn't doing it, he hates me. Okay, let's look at all the other reasons why the dog might not be listening to you right now. And so we talk about, you know, does it trust you? Does it respect you? Are you using the correct commands? Have you been consistent? If Jim Bob comes up to a dog that he's never met before and says, Fido, sit. A lot of times Fido is going to look at him like, you're crazy. Because Fido responds, you know, to things that produce reward and he doesn't know this person. He still doesn't trust this person. He doesn't want to sit, which is a, you know, non-dominant position when he doesn't know what's in it for him. So we talk about, you know, what other reasons might Fido not want to be behaving. We also explore dialectics and trying to get a dog into a crate or the donkeys into the barn. You know, people say that donkeys are really stubborn. And in reality, they're just really smart and they're really cautious. You know, when we first got our donkeys, you know, I had no experience with equines. So at the end of the day, you know, we would put them on their lead and we'd walk them into the barn so they could sleep in the barn and be safe from any foxes or anything. Well, we would get to the barn door and they wouldn't go in. And, you know, I thought and I thought and I didn't know. So I went online and I did some research. Apparently, just like us, if you come in from a really sunny day outside and you walk into a building, you can't see very well because your eyes haven't adjusted to the light change. Well, a lot of us just walk in anyway and we're like, oh, our eyes will adjust. Donkeys' eyes don't adjust that quickly. So they aren't willing to walk into a dark room. You know, a dark barn, for example, when they don't, they can't see what's in it. Dogs may be reluctant to get into a crate if they don't know what's going to happen. If every time they've gotten in a crate before, it means that they've gone to the vet. You know, they may not be keen on getting into a crate. So we want to explore dialectics. You know, how is it that, you know, this can be something that's good for them and you want them to do, but they can also be afraid of it and be resistant. And then we've got to figure out how to help them understand it's in their best interest and feel better about it. Animals can serve for bonding and relaxation when you have people who have difficulty calming down. You know, petting an animal, talking to an animal, walking a dog if it's not one that pulls a lot, petting a cat. My cat Mojo, when I get upset and or I've had a bad day, he'll come in and he'll get on my lap and he'll make biscuits right over my chest and he'll lay down and he'll purr. And there's actually an infographic on some of the effects of cat purrs. And one of them is actually pain reduction. It acts kind of like a 10s unit and the purr, the vibrations of the purr stimulate the nerves so whatever place there's the pain doesn't hurt as much. Now getting a cat to lay on your lower back for 30 minutes ain't going to happen, but you can understand or see some of the benefits. You know, the purring is just very calming to a lot of people. And it can help people develop acceptance despite being different. So choose animals with differences. You know, choose the blind horse, choose the older horse. One of our donkeys has lost all of her top teeth and bless her heart. So she has to have special food. So, you know, she gets the nutrients that she needs, but she's toothless. So she walks around and her tongue pops out. She walks around like this most of the time. And, you know, the vet says there's no problem with that. It's just she doesn't have the teeth to hold her tongue in right now. So we can talk about that. You also can highlight unique animal pairs and this doesn't even have to be done on the farm. You don't have to have a unique animal pair there. There's a lot of evidence of them on the internet and there's a link somewhere in here for those like a donkey and a goat. Donkeys don't like to be alone. Donkeys like to be in pairs or in groups. So if you've got a pair and one passes away, you know, the remaining donkey is going to get very, very lonely. And it's going to have negative health effects. So, you know, who else can you partner them with? And sometimes you don't want to get another donkey. But you do. They will make friends with a goat. They will make friends with a big dog. Occasionally they'll make friends with a goose or something. But anything that they can bond with is going to help. And so we want to talk about, you know, why are they together? Why are they friends? How can two such different animals be friends? The farm experience offers much stimulation and provides the basis for creative and varied interventions such as providing the opportunity for the client to practice nurturing activities. You know, you can watch how the chickens behave. You know, our rooster will find some of the wild strawberries and he'll pluck the strawberry and he'll start doing this cooking thing and then he'll drop the strawberry. And he's not going to eat it. And if the girls don't come over to eat the strawberry, he'll pick it up and he'll drop it again and he'll pluck. He goes around and forages for them, which is very cute. You can watch, you know, we have a gaggle of geese right now and you can watch the mom and dad geese tend to the Goslings and they co-parent. You know, they take turns who's sitting on the nest, who's leading. And then now that the Goslings have hatched, when they swim around, there's always one at the rear and one at the front. So they've always got their gut and eye on all of their Goslings. And we can talk about parenting and nurturing and what the animals have to do. It can offer organizational skills. If, you know, you immerse them in the farm environment, you know, maybe they are responsible for taking care of the chickens. So what do you have to do? Chickens have to be let out at daybreak and they have to be put back up at dusk. And, you know, it's important that they have at least 14 hours of sunlight a day in order to get eggs. So they learn about the different animals and they start figuring out, okay, now how do, what do I need to do in order to make this happen? And it helps with problem solving and organization and follow through. Keeping organized for a test is a little bit more boring. But keeping organized to make sure an animal is healthy and happy, people tend to project their own feelings onto the animal so they don't want the animal to be sad or uncomfortable. Perspective taking. But you can have them get down on the ground as low as a bunny rabbit and look around and say, what must the world be like to be this small in this huge environment? Okay, you know, talk about that for a while and then transition and say, all right, when you were a child, things were very, very chaotic. And so, you know, what was it like for you when you were that small in a huge environment? And now you're bigger, how do you see the environment? You know, now that you're able to fend for yourself or whatever. So you can draw the connections between being small and defenseless and then being bigger. A dog's social life is organized around dominant subordinate relationships. Dogs are expected to obey commands and offer clients what is often referred to as unconditional acceptance. This doesn't always happen. Brewster is, he'll accept anybody. He's just like, I want to lick you to death and I'm going to roll over on my back until you pet me. He's a cutie patootie. But Duke, our hound dog, he doesn't like to be pet on his feet. And when he's laying on the sofa, he doesn't want to be pet. He tells you when he's ready to be pet. He's not a great therapy dog because he's very particular. And if you pet him when he doesn't want to be pet, he'll kind of and get up and walk away. Excuse me. So you do want to make sure that you check out the animal to make sure that they're good therapy dogs. Now you could use Duke's attitude and translate it. You know, sometimes you want to do things that other people don't want to do and they're going to get grumpy and go away. Does that mean anything against you? Does that mean they don't like you? No. You know, Duke likes me just fine. He just didn't want to be pet at that particular moment. So we can, again, help them expand that. There's often a difference in children's responses during sessions, including more laughing, increased eye contact, communication with dogs, and a desire to connect through feeding the dog treats. This can help the child develop a sense of personal agency. It can help them learn to develop trust with the animal. And again, it gives them something to focus on outside of themselves while they're talking, which can diffuse some of the emotional turmoil. Teaching people positive dog training techniques also helps them understand clear communication, relationship development, including the development of trust, mutual respect for one another as well as boundaries, perspective taking, nurturance, and termination. You know, not all relationships are going to last. People die. People go away. Things happen. So how does that work? It helps them work on developing empathy, delaying gratification, because like I said, sometimes you may want to play ball and the dog doesn't. Or you may want to sit down and the dog doesn't. And they can also learn the connection between their behavior and consequences in a non-threatening manner. So when you get upset and you start screaming at a dog, what happens? Generally, one of two things happens. Either the dog cowers or the dog gets really excited because he thinks you're barking at him. And he's like, oh, you're trying to talk to me. You're excited too. And he doesn't really understand. All of these things can be taught with dogs, which is one of the reasons that training dogs to be service dogs or training dogs to be adopted out, rescue animals in jails and prisons has become a pretty big thing. There are at least a dozen prisons and jails throughout the country that let inmates take in animals from the animal shelter. They train them in basic obedience and they develop all these skills. And then they terminate their relationship with the animal so it can be adopted out to another family. And it helps the inmates develop a lot of the skills that they may not have developed, which led to them being incarcerated. Cat socialization is based on give and take and mutuality and reciprocity. You give me a treat, I'll be nice to you. So we need to respect the fact that most cats have a very independent nature. A lot of them, if they don't want to be held right now, you can pick them up and put them on your lap and they're going to jump off. We can, again, teach and extrapolate that to humans and human behavior. Some people are more independent than others. And it's important to create win-win situations if you want somebody to do something. So if I want Mojo to get on my lap, I offer him treats or I tell him I won't brush him. He hates being brushed. So it's important for people to start working here. In contrast to human horse or human dog relationships, Chandler listed the following attributes for felines in therapy. They tend to be quiet and calm. So for people with sensory processing issues with any level of autism, cats can be really helpful. For some people who are allergic to cats, the hairless cats can be an option. But remember that most allergies are due to skin dander, not hair itself. So it would be important for that person to figure out what they're allergic to before even thinking about adopting a cat or engaging in animal therapy. But animal quiet and calmness, cats are lazy. They'll just kind of lay there and sit. Dogs, they see somebody walk up to the front door and they just lose their stuffing. Cats will just kind of look at the front door like, yeah, I'm not going to get up right now. You know, I don't really care that you're here. Felines can teach a level of comfort with being touched. Not all cats like to be touched. Most cats don't like to have their paws messed with. Felines have to have a motivation to be around people. And we can talk about some felines, how they like to be in high places because that's safer. Some felines like to be in low places and some felines like to be right with their humans. And people are like that. So we can talk about, you know, in your relationships, you know, which friends of yours like to be around other people all the time. Which friends of yours tend to like to be just kind of sitting down and quiet. And which friends of yours tend to be active and all over the place and just don't have time to, you know, socialize and do group stuff. Playful cats often offer lighthearted moments which can act as an icebreaker. Throw a ball for a cat, you know, have the little fishing rod thing for the cat. There's a lot of things cats will do or can do that are pretty funny, especially if you get some of the more energetic cats. And there are certain cat breeds that are more dog-like than others. Doing your research. Burmese and Siamese cats and Tonkinese cats tend to be more dog-like. Often will play fetch, very talkative as opposed to other cats. And this is true for mixes too. You don't have to have a purebred. Techniques. Teach the client how to direct the animal and then collaboratively, collaboratively problem-solve when confronted with an obstacle to promote self-monitoring. You know, if the person's getting upset because the animal's not doing what they want. You know, we want to collaboratively problem-solve and talk about, okay, you know, getting upset. How is that affecting the animal? What's the impact of that? And what's the impact of that on your ability to problem-solve? So let's talk about, all right, how do we problem-solve? It empowers the client and encourages generalization to daily life situations, among other things. So you can use it in examples with parenting, for example, to teach consistency and clear communication. If Fido comes to the table and, you know, it's for some clients, they don't mind having a snack when they're in your office. If the dog comes and begs for food and you tell it, no. And, you know, okay, so it doesn't get food that time. But, you know, every sixth or seventh time you give in and give food to the dog, then the dog's going to continue to beg for food because it knows it just has to beg enough times and it's going to get the food. So helping parents recognize the need to not have that exception when they give in. It can help in improving communication with a spouse or a boss because it's encouraging people to be clear in their communications with one another. Giving and receiving affection, you know, how much is too much? What are the boundaries that need to be respected right now? I have a foster cat at home right now who was totally feral when she was dropped off at the shelter. And she's gotten to the point now where if I tell her, Vicki, go get on your pad, she'll get on her pad, and then I can pick her up and move her around or trim her nails or pet her or do whatever I want to do. But I still can't walk up to her and lean down and pet her, freaks her out. So she's made a lot of progress from being completely untouchable. But it's important to teach people how to gradually move towards where somebody is comfortable. It encourages people to be aware of their emotions and nonverbal communications. Like I said, especially dogs, you know, if you're upset, they're going to come try to get you to calm down. I don't exactly understand upset, but whenever there's emoting going on, dogs tend to get up in people's business. And you can understand the reciprocal nature of interactions when I come home and Brewster greets me at the door. If I get excited and I'm like, oh, hey, boy, how are you doing? How was your day? He starts jumping and carrying on. Brewster weighs almost 90 pounds. I don't want him jumping. So when I come in, if I'm quiet and I don't pay any attention to him right away when I walk in or I'm coming up the stairs, I say, Hey, Brew, I open the door, come in, put my stuff down. And then he comes around to where I can see him and I tell him to sit. He sits and then he gets attention. So he understands and I understand that if I get upset or if I get agitated in some way, he's going to get agitated. If I'm calm, he'll calm. The client and counselor should collaboratively develop behavioral experiments to involve animals. For example, if a client believes she can't be assertive, one thing you may have them do is call for the animals to come in or place her in charge of directing an animal to accomplish a task, like go get a stick or train them to go fetch something. The counselor can question the client to encourage mindfulness of her actions and experience and to help expose any cognitive distortions. The dog just wasn't listening to me or the dog doesn't like me or doesn't respect me. And we can talk about what might actually be going on with the dog. You know, if I try to call Duke in when somebody is power walking right out in front of the fence, he's not going to come in. But then if I open the gate and I walk out the gate and I say, what did you do? He drops right there. So it's a matter of figuring out how to communicate. And he knows that if I use that tone and if I come out the gate, there's going to be problems. And you know, I'm probably going to pick him up and carry him inside. So it's important to help clients see how their interactions and their emotions and everything affect the animal. And also to understand that animals just like humans can choose, you know, they're going to choose whether they want to pay attention or not. And sometimes there's just something else out there that is way more interesting. So, you know, helping people understand it may not be about you. It may be about, you know, making sure that person power walking past the fence wasn't going to come into his territory. Cognitive rehearsals can also be facilitated. If assertiveness is a problem the client has encountered in the past. So for example, have the client try to walk the donkey into the barn or get the dog into the crate. Discuss her thoughts as the animal resists. Does she give up? You know, this just isn't going to work. He ain't going to do it. Or does she get angry and start scolding him and screaming at him? You know, what are your thoughts as you start to get those feelings? Discuss reasons why the animal might not be complying. Because a lot of times when we get angry with children or our friends or whatever, you know, we get really frustrated. But we don't take the time out to think, let's get in their shoes for a second. Why might this person not be doing what I want? Maybe I didn't communicate completely. Maybe I expected mind reading. Maybe, you know, there's a lot of maybes there. So you can start brainstorming why the animal might not be complying. And then walk through the exercise to increase assertiveness. Teach her how to create a win-win. So for the dog, for example, put treats in the back of the crate. And dogs will generally go into the crate for treats. And, you know, you can work up that way. And then you can generalize to interactions with humans and making sure that they understand how what they're learning translates into working with humans. So once they get comfortable being consistent and creating win-wins and figuring out how to problem solve with their therapy animal, then you can say, okay, how can you use this skill next week interacting at work or at school? Activities can be designed to draw attention to existing dynamics and encourage a family to acknowledge current behaviors and interrelationships and reflect on healthier interactions. One scenario might be asking the family work together to maneuver a horse or a dog from point A to point B without talking to each other or to the animal. If you've ever seen the dog shows, they have those doggie obstacle courses. And if you can have a family, you don't have to do the whole obstacle course, getting the dog to either jump over something or weave through the little stakes, it takes a lot of communicating. But if you're not able to verbally talk, you can videotape it and then you can replay it later and look at it with the family and go, okay, who was being dominant? Who was being non-engaged at all? What were the dynamics that were going on here? If a parent and child concretely explore the metaphor of feeling rained in, they can do it through dog or horsework. The family can discover the animal is more compliant and responsive with a looser rain or leash. When you hold a tight leash, the dog feels vulnerable because they can't get away. We know when there's a big storm coming usually before we even check the news because the donkeys will not go into the barn. They don't feel they don't want to be confined in that barn. They want to be able to run if they absolutely have to. I don't know where they're going to run to, but you know, that's the only time they ever fuss about going into the barn is if there's a storm coming. So when held tight, animals often fight to gain control or will become passive and stubborn. Much like a child who's being held on a tight rain or where the relationship is very enmeshed. So we can draw those parallels. Clients with less developed verbal skills, kids, people with autism who don't have verbal skills, people with intellectual disabilities can experience a success when interacting with an animal. Even if they don't speak super clearly or if they have a stutter, animals don't care. Asking a dog to sit or offering food to an animal provides positive interaction without the need for language. So this is when hand signals can come in. So a lot of times I'll have clients both use a verbal signal and a hand signal so they'll say sit. That way the dog learns the dog knows this means sit. But when they hear the child say it, you know, if the child has a speech impediment or doesn't say it the same way I do. The dog may not recognize the verbal communication, but when they pair them together, then the dog starts to understand that when the child makes this sound, it means to sit. Individuals with lowered self-esteem and confidence can experience acceptance. You know, it's great when you walk into a room and a dog's ears perk up and he comes over and greets you. And people with social anxiety can walk a dog in a public place. Now remember what I said, you want to start, don't go to Home Depot. Go to some parking lot somewhere where you might see three or four people coming in and out of an office and they'll just wave. Start there and then work your way up to more public places and potentially a dog park. Multisensory activities, these are fun. Photocrapping or videotaping animals and then going back later and saying what was that animal thinking? And trying to, you know, they can create memes, they can do a variety of things. They can scrapbook if you want to tell them to go out and take 15 pictures of animals nurturing other animals. You know, pick a topic, nurturance or happiness or sleepy or whatever you're trying to get the person to identify with or develop an understanding of. They can scrapbook. Have them learn about special animals, especially at a rescue. There's one animal at one of the blind rescues that was abused, blind and starved and had broken bones in her back. She was understandably afraid of people. There's no telling what kind of horror she survived and she immediately received medical care she needed when she went to the rescue. Okay, now when I first read this, I'm like, this could be the beginning of an assessment for any number of my clients. So finding animals who have similar life stories can help clients connect a little bit and recognize that, you know, that animal is obviously totally deserving of love. Hey, I'm totally deserving of love, even though I may feel like I'm a little bit broken. Animals can also provide an entity onto which the client may project or identify, such as storytelling from the animal's point of view as a means for the client to raise metaphorical or even factual details of a topic otherwise difficult to talk about. So they can talk about their experience from the point of view of an animal that had gone through something similar, for example. Now, unusual, and we're not going to spend a lot of time on this, bubbles the African elephant and Bella the black Labrador, best friends, an emu and a giraffe, a dog and a fox, an owl and a dog. That's very sweet. A lab and a duck. You know, totally different species, you know, one's often a predator of the other one, but for some reason they become friends, and it shows that, you know, despite genetic differences, this hen is raising these puppies and trying to keep them warm. Lots of examples of hens keeping puppies and kittens warm. I don't know that I would trust my little dog with a lion, but you know, more, more power to them. So that just gives you an idea and you can use those pictures and talk about the immense differences, but also the immense sameness they both need love, they both need comfort, they both need friendship. Journaling, you can have clients journal their training progress and in order to demonstrate consistency and identify their efficacy. When I was in college, my behavioral modification lab, we trained our pigeon to do the hokey pokey. It's not easy to train a pigeon to dance, but we did, and we had to journal it throughout so we could make sure we were being consistent about when the bird got treats, when it didn't get treats, when we were going to start shaping the behavior. And as people start to journal and see how they're changing things, how they're gradually making things better or different, they start to develop a sense of agency in change. They can also start journaling about their own change process. Changes are often so small and incremental, we don't notice every single change. If you're journaling, then you're going to see the progress and you can go back over a month and look at, you know, at the beginning of the month, Fido wouldn't even sit. Now Fido will sit and stay. And the use of metaphors and symbolism can be very effective as well. Asking people what animal are you most like and why? And have people explain that? What animal do you most want to be like? What animal are you most afraid of and why? And just kind of working through that because it can give you an idea about whether people have issues with authority, if they have issues with, you know, feeling like they're always in danger, if they choose a small animal like a little tiny house mouse or something. It can give you something to talk about. Memory or cognitive? Having people remember the dog's name or breed history, the handler's name. Activities with the dog's picture book. Giving commands or remembering colors, shapes and directions that you need to give the animal. These are all things that you can train or have people focus on in order to improve their memory and improve their cognitive capacity. If you're working with somebody with dementia, for example, or somebody with fetal alcohol spectrum issues, you can have them develop problem solving by choosing the type of toy or treat to use with a particular animal. You know, all of our animals respond to different toys and treats. So, you know, I know which ones they respond to and why, but it's important for clients to be able to figure out, okay, I think, you know, because this dog is really active, maybe they would prefer a Frisbee over, you know, laying on a bed. Deciding where to go during a walk and how to get there. You know, thinking about how much traffic there is, what dangers there might be for the animal, et cetera. Giving the dog appropriate commands. You know, you want them to do, go into the lounge, get a paper cup and bring it back. That's some sort of complex task. Okay, so how do we teach the dog to do that? You know, first you have to teach them to go into the lounge and get that behavior established. Then you have to teach them, all right, now how are we going to teach them to pick up the cup? And then, you know, move from there. But there's problem solving involved in figuring out how you're going to get an animal who doesn't understand English to follow these directions. You can also choose where to hide treats for the dog to find. And kids love this activity because it's kind of like playing hot and cold and the dog will be sniffing around. They go and they hide treats and they start thinking, you know, when the dog finds the treats too fast, it's not any fun. So then they start thinking of all these creative places to hide treats. Some of them not very practical, but, you know, that's getting them to start problem solving and going, I don't want this to be over quite so quickly. So what can I do? Issues to address, assertiveness and communication skills can be taught. Perspective taking, consistency, boundaries and establishing trust. We already talked about a lot of this, so I'm going over it quickly. Motivation. People are often much more motivated, not everybody, but often are much more motivated to participate in animal therapy than they are just sitting there talking to us. Animals are cute. Self-esteem because animals total acceptance of us despite our disability or physical appearance is endearing. It provides empowerment because clients are able to give commands and get a response when they may not feel like they're able to get anybody to do anything that they ask. And it provides increased social interaction, partly because they're exposed to other people when they have the dog. It can be used to address anger and anxiety awareness. The animal, generally the dog in this case, acts as a living alarm for distress and when the person gets upset, the dog will generally go closer to that person to help sort of protect them. It can be used with health anxiety. A lot of dogs can be trained to identify oncoming seizures and some theoretically have even been trained to identify symptoms of oncoming migraines, panic attacks. So there are a variety of different health concerns people may have that animals can assist with by being more aware since they're more sensitive and they can smell more things. Like I said, when I am talking about a day, if I'm talking about something stressful I've got to do, I don't even realize I've got stressed voice, but Brewster realizes it. And he comes over, he's like, mom, first cup of coffee, not even done yet, chill out. So people with health anxiety can benefit from having an animal with them to help them become more aware of themselves and implement whatever prevention measures they need to as soon as the dog alerts. Autism can be addressed with animal therapy. Schizotypal personality disorder and schizoid can both be addressed. These people tend to have really poor interpersonal interactions and they don't really want, in some cases, interpersonal interactions. So the animals can be a source of feedback and nurturance that they're not ready willing or able to accept from another human being at a certain point. And fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. People with FASD tend to speak at a very high level, but their reading comprehension and their actual cognitive development is more on the level of, you know, 8, 10, 12 year olds. So even though they may be fully adult, a lot of times they don't understand certain concepts. They have a lot of difficulty interpreting nonverbals. So animals can help provide comfort and self-esteem as well as help the person monitor themselves in terms of their interactions with other people. Emotional dysregulation and distress tolerance. Animals can help clients tolerate distress and learn that they can tolerate distress when they get upset if they start petting the dog or the cat or the horse. They realize that this hurts, this sucks right now, but it'll pass and they focus on petting the animal. And then when it's over, they're like, okay, I made it through that. It wasn't the best, but I made it through. And it can also serve as a distraction. If somebody's getting upset, it can give them something to focus on to help them de-escalate and let the adrenaline subside. For people with PTSD, animals can be very calming and reassuring if they're wondering if somebody is going to attack them. And they're always on guard because of that, whether they were victimized in some way or they were a soldier. Animals are really awesome at helping with that. And they're also really awesome for night terrors because when I worked with veterans, a lot of them would have night terrors and have difficulty getting oriented. And when an animal is there, most of the time it's not appropriate for all cases, but most of the time if an animal was there, they were able to get reoriented with their pet. Depression. Animals can help with unconditional positive regard, increasing movement, which increases the availability of serotonin and getting people outside so they're not sleeping all the time and disrupting their circadian rhythms. And it increases a sense of responsibility because they got to get up to feed the dog. And animals can be used with grief. You know, animals are very accepting when you're sad and they understand in their own way when somebody's upset about something. Cautions. So getting to some of these questions that came in. No. Not all people respond to animals well. Not all people are comfortable with them. The client's physical and emotional response to a particular species of animal is based on previous direct and indirect experiences, as well as their beliefs, desires and fears about a specific species. There are certain people who really don't like dogs. There are certain people who don't like cats. People who are afraid of horses, you know, it just depends on their exposure and their experiences and culturally what how they've been raised or have learned to appreciate those particular animals. The other thing we need to consider is the role of animals and the client's life outside the therapy session. For example, rabbits. Rabbits are a food source and rabbits are a pet. So if you're looking at a rabbit as a pet and something to be nurtured, somebody who uses rabbits as a food source is probably not going to bond and have the same interactions with your bunny as you would expect because they've learned not to get emotionally attached to the rabbits. Sanitation and the potential for disease must be addressed. All animals have to have their inoculations and parasite control must be current. Clients also must be screened for potential allergies or sensitivities before they interact with the animal. It's suggested that you have a separate place for animal therapy, not just your main office because, you know, if somebody has an allergy and you have the animal in your main office, then they can't come anywhere in your office potentially. So you want to be cognizant of that. Environmental distractions combined with the predictability, unpredictability of the client's behavior can present challenges to the counselor, particularly in an outdoor setting. So there are, you know, what's Sally going to do if the dog starts to run off? What's Sally going to do if the cat climbs a tree or gets scared? I remember one time the horse that I was, that lived next door, got spooked by something. And again, I told you I don't have a whole lot of experience with horses and she was a percher on draft horse, so she was huge. And she decided she was done. She was going to run away from whatever it was. And she weighed about 1,800 pounds. I grabbed a rain. I'm like, no, Sally, stay here. And she drug me about a quarter mile before I finally let go. And then I had to go find her. So there are things you got to consider what's going to happen. And elderly and small children often report feeling safer around smaller animals because they may be afraid of being knocked over by larger or more rambunctious dogs or horses or etc. There are a variety of techniques that can be used to incorporate animals into counseling practice. Animals help develop self-esteem, build confidence, improve assertiveness, help with empathy, mindfulness, distress tolerance, and improve communication skills. And animals also can just serve to relieve anxiety. Petting an animal has been shown to reduce blood pressure and increase serotonin levels. When you're working with an animal that in therapy, you want to make sure that they're well trained. You want to rule out possibilities of aggressiveness. You know, every once in a while, something could happen that could make the animal aggressive, but you really want to have animals that are well trained. And it doesn't is not going to get aggressive. But there are clear ground rules that you set with clients before any types of interactions with the animals to prevent something that might scare the animal and put the client or the animal potentially in danger. Yes, anytime you have animals working with your clients, you want to have them sign a waiver because anything could happen. And this includes cats and fish, not so much. But cats can scratch people. Cats occasionally will bite. That's rare. But, you know, cat scratches can get infected. People can be allergic to cats. So you need to be very comfortable with the animals that you have and know that they're not reactive. So not every animal of any species is going to be appropriate for animal therapy. They need to be screened and you can work with them. If you're working with rescues, which are great animals to work with, you know, again, you may change your protocol some in order to ensure everyone's safety. If you have a dog, for example, who develops anxiety issues around new people, or when you go out to work with horses for the first time, you know, make sure that people know, stay away from their back backside where they can kick you. You want to approach them from the front and, you know, any, any of the safety rules. Another thing that's been used with some animals is more animal therapy programs is to make sure that children, and this is more appropriate for children, they learn about the animal and they learn about the animal's needs. And then they have to demonstrate an awareness of the animal's needs and their history and what makes them scared before they're allowed to interact with the animal. So, for example, if you're talking about a rabbit, you know, what does an animal need to feel, what does a rabbit need to feel safe? Well, they definitely need some type of box or hole or something that they can go into when they're scared because they're den animals and, you know, that's what they do when they get scared. So all of those different things, special consideration for a rabbit, you need to support their hind legs whenever you pick them up because if they kick out, they could break their back. Those are all things that children would need to be able to articulate to earn the privilege of handling the animals. Alrighty. Well, thank you everybody for being here today. Are there any other questions? Oh, animals can be very soothing to people. I wouldn't say that they are curative. They can help people become more aware of their anger triggers and when they're starting to get irritable so they can self intervene more quickly. They can pet an animal when they get upset in order to help that adrenaline go down, but they still have to identify what's triggering them and figure out how to deal with that because if the dog's not around, then they don't have that outlet. If you decide you don't want to have animals like live animals in your facility or you can't because of Jacob or car for some other reason. Other things that you can do are to include, you know, if people have pets, have them bring scrapbooks in of their pets of their favorite moments or something you did with your pet this weekend that made you happy. You can also have animal videos. Those aren't going to teach assertiveness and all that other stuff, but they can serve as something to laugh about. They can serve as, you know, if you have seen animal interacting where it looks scared. You know, you can pause it and talk about why the animal was scared and then generalize to human relationships. Alrighty everybody have a great day and a wonderful weekend and I will see you on Tuesday. If you enjoyed this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceuse.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceuse.com providing 24 seven multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006. You can use coupon code counselor toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.