Pet therapy
December 2023
Therapy
Furry Caregivers
Animals and humans have a great bond, and this is being used to good effect in the zone
of emotional well-being, says Jamuna Rangachari
Before I start speaking about animal therapy, I wish to share a few anecdotes from my life though I have not owned any pets myself. My uncle is very short tempered but becomes a different person when he is with his dog, showing all the gentleness that is hidden within him. So, the path to get along well with him is through his dog. Since my husband is also a dog lover, he loves to be with one whenever he can. My son was extremely lazy while in school, and my greatest challenge was to wake him in the morning. When my friend came over and stayed with us with her dog, he became super active looking after all the dog’s needs, including taking him for an early morning walk. My daughter bonded with a cat in our colony and would go to be with her before her exams to destress and, yes, this did help. A parrot, Mithu, was brought to my maid’s house by her son when the bird was wounded. Mithu knew this and had a unique bond with him. She would never eat till her son did and would wait for him always. This resulted in the boy coming home early and never eating outside. Mithu was extremely popular in the colony and among all children and thus created a kind of democratic atmosphere for all. When Mithu passed away, there was a burial conducted for it that everyone, young and old, attended. These stories shared above are not about therapy but about loving and bonding.
The fact is that all animals have something to give us and the more we learn to bond with them, the more healthy we shall be. There has always been a bond between human beings and animals, as shown in many movies, particularly between dogs and their masters. An old Hindi movie Hathi Mere Saathi (1971) showed the unusual bond between an elephant and his master.
As animals love unconditionally, bonding with them has several positive effects on the individual’s overall well-being, including emotional wellness, and improves their self esteem in the long run. That is why it is very helpful when children grow up with a pet.
This bond between human beings and animals has been present all over the world for very long. In India, most villagers feed an animal, and this makes the animals bond with most of them. On another note, in the epic Mahabharata, a dog walks with Yudhishthira on his last walk in the mountains towards heaven even when all his siblings and his spouse die. This shows us how loyal a dog is.
In 1962, child psychologist Dr Boris Levinson published his study ‘The Dog as a co-therapist’ and then AAT (Animal Assisted Therapy) as a therapy started being recognised. It involves the afflicted person or patient caring for or spending time with an animal and bonding with it. This leads to a number of physical, emotional, educational, or psychological benefits. It is not the main therapy but is used to aid the healing process. Each AAT session usually lasts for one hour. After understanding the client well, the therapist chooses the appropriate animal. All kinds of animals are used in this therapy.
Promoting pet therapy
Srishti and Animesh from Delhi started Fur Ball Story back in 2016 to provide sessions of animal-assisted activity and therapy to everyone in need. It all began when their college got two puppies within the campus premises.
Srishti was animal-friendly but Animesh was not very pet-friendly at that time. However, after spending time with the puppies, he instantly felt a sense of warmth and a range of other emotions all at once, something that he had not expected at all. He is a Type 1 diabetic, but throughout the time that he was in the company of the puppies, his glucose levels were normal and his sugar control was much better than usual. This made him think. He Googled and discovered that there is a concept called ‘pet therapy,’ which is prevalent in the West but not so much in India. That’s how they started the process of getting dogs and providing them with therapy training.
Their organisation wishes to help those facing depression, stress, anxiety, and other similar mental health issues, and they wish to give an experience of pet ownership to those who are planning to welcome a pet in their home as well as those who cannot do so. This was done to help reduce the rate of abandonment of pets, something that is done by a lot of new pet parents when they realise that pet parenting is not their cup of tea.
Srishti with her pet
Pet therapy can bring the down stress and anxiety levels of patients
Both Srishti and Animesh are lawyers by education. So, naturally, they were facing some backlash from their families for diverting their career path from law to AAT. All they needed was to be heard. It was difficult to explain the concept with its scientific backing to every single customer. Finally, some online platforms responded to their message on Facebook. They heard their story and featured them on their websites. That was when they finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. After that, there was no looking back. This feature also landed them a project at the Mumbai International Airport and changed their lives. To date, they have conducted sessions of animal-assisted activity or therapy in over 1,000 residences and corporations. At the Mumbai International Airport, they used to meet 200 plus people every day. They have received many great testimonials from parents of autistic kids and children suffering from depression.
Purrfect experiences
When Rehana Mohammed Shakir from Bangalore set up her Persian cat therapy programme in 2012, she intended to help encourage love, kindness, and respect for animals, especially Persian cats, and facilitate a healing exchange in an experiential pet and play format. She did this despite struggling with her own life then.
Rehana desired to encourage people to see cats as special beings of love, gentleness, and courage rather than just pretty showpieces and breeding machines—the fate humans have condemned them to.
The idea to create a healing pet intervention space for troubled minds was triggered while she was undergoing training in counselling and was fascinated by the facets of mental and emotional wellness that she was also witnessing with her Persian cats. Every time someone visited their home for the first time or the nth time, the cats seemed to have an intuitive sensitivity to the underlying emotions of the visitor— things that one wouldn’t know behind their ready smiles, whether it was anxiety, sadness, or fatigue, or just the inability to be in the moment. Her cats would sense this and the one who most related to that emotion would sit beside the visitor, and it would seem like a switch was turned on. So much was exchanged between the two without a word being said, yet you could see the change, the sense of comfort at being home within themselves, the reassurance that they’re special. Worries dropped away from their faces!
Rehana could see what was happening countless times in healing sessions. It was a kind of catharsis, a sense of freedom in being yourself. With young children, these interactions addressed issues of withdrawal, hyperactivity, and self-expression. The early years of childhood are fraught with so many challenges, academic pressure being one of them. Rehana says that much of one’s childhood is shaped by
these challenges to the extent that free spirit, spontaneity, and joy of this life phase are affected, and she tries to make this more joyful through her cats.
Real bonds that heal
We all are made by the same Creator. By bonding with animals, we become more compassionate and giving as animals love us without any personal agenda. If we do have any fear, this too will disappear while interacting with animals. They turn love, kindness, and compassion into real bonds that are a heart-moving experience.
Personally, I have seen that children in their teens are subject to tremendous pressure for a variety of reasons, and I have also seen them getting completely de-stressed when they spend some time with a pet, as mentioned earlier. I hope people in the health sector like hospitals and therapists accept AAT too, gradually, and the government promotes this process with suitable rules.
Let us bring animals into our lives to grow and become healed.
Jamuna Rangachari, the former assistant editor of Life Positive, has authored two books for children, and compiled and interpreted Teaching Stories-I and II for Life Positive. Write to her at jamunarangachari@gmail.com.