By Yunjia Hou
When Harvard University graduate student Maria Chen, needs a break, she heads over to the school’s Countway Library of Medicine for a visit with Dayton.
“Dayton reminds me of my own dog,” said Chen, who is working on her master’s degree at the nearby Harvard School of Public Health.
She played fetch with Dayton – part Labrador retriever, part golden retriever and part poodle - who has been a therapy dog for seven years and works at the library every Monday.
Meredith Solomon, the outreach officer at the library, is the organizer of “Countway Cuddles Wet Nose Therapy” program.
“Having a therapy dog is always the number oneNo.1 among all the programs to help students reduce stress,” said Meredith Solomon, Countway Library’s outreach officer.
She watched Dayton licking a student’s face after getting a belly rub.
“Dayton is like, ‘You taste good,’” she said to the student.
Campus therapy dog programs like this one have become popular in recent years, according to the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. A 2017 Tufts survey of 68 colleges found that 42 have animal therapy programs.
“It’s easy to see why – animals provide comfort, unconditional acceptance, and social interactions with populations in diverse settings,” according to literature from the Tufts’ “Paws for People” program.
Interacting with a therapy dog can lower people’s blood pressure and heart rate and increase physical activities, said Megan Mueller, the co-director of Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction. T, adding, there is no judgement from a dog so people feel relaxed and can share their feelings with a dog, Mueller said.
She said therapy dog visitation in universities it’s a good use of therapy dog programs.
Since there is a lot of confusion about the difference between service dog, emotional support dog and therapy dog, Mueller gave a brief explanation about that:
Service dogs are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and are individually trained to do work or perform a task to benefit their handlers, individuals with disability.
Emotional support dogs are pets that provide support to someone with a mental illness prescribed by a licensed medical professional. No training or evaluation is required for emotional support dogs.
Therapy dogs are dogs trained to provide specific human populations with animal contact. Their work is not focused on their handlers but focused on others.
According to Mueller’s research about animal-assisted stress reduction programs in higher education, more than half of the institutions she surveyed reported having therapy dog programs during the final examination period. Libraries are the place where a lot of universities organize their therapy animal programs and alternative locations are student centers, outdoors and dormitories, she said.
Sometimes students can check out a therapy dog and walk the dog on campus, but in most cases, they interact with the dog — pet the dog or take photos with the dog, under the supervision of the dog handler, said Mueller.
The feedback from given by universities about their therapy dog programs are “generally pretty positive,” said Mueller. “Students love engaging with the dogs and learning more about them. And there is a lot of stress in college,” she said.
The biggest challenge, in Mueller’s opinion, is ensuring safety and high quality experiences for everyone, both humans and animals.
“Although many programs are run very well, there are not set requirements for training, health and safety requirements,” she said.
Mueller said there are some safety concerns organizers should keep in mind, for example, they should make sure people have the opportunity to leave if they are allergic or afraid of dogs; know how to recognize their dogs are stressed; if there is a high volume of people, organizations need to give dogs frequent breaks so they can relax; additionally, handlers should make sure their dogs are clean are ready for interact with people.
Mueller said there is no requirement to register a dog or buy insurance but it can be a problem. “Because you are not sure how well the therapy animal has been screened for working with people if they are not registered,” she said.
According to her research of 42 higher educations, only half of them reported the handler or therapy animal teams were registered under a national or local organization which has regular evaluation procedures while the half of them reported “no” or “unsure.”
Jeanne Brouillette, who has worked on therapy dog program for almost 20 years, is the co-founder of Dog B.O.N.E.S., a nonprofit supports the therapy dog programs of Tufts University, Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other facilities in Massachusetts.
“Registered means the dog and its handler are part of a therapy dog organization,” said Brouillette.
“While in Mass the owners are responsible for their dog 24 hours a day and seven days a week, the insurance provides one more layer of insurance if something go horrible happens on a visit and someone wants to sue the handler,” she said.
She said the way Dog B.O.N.E.S. collaborates with colleges and other facilities is very simple, which means they do not have affiliation agreements, contracts or written collaborations.
“It is up to the college to set up the date time place and to have people there to organize the event. We do our best to have teams come to make visits,” she said.
Brouillette said they offer services to anyone who make a request and there is no cost to anyone who wants a visit. “We are all volunteering to bring therapy dog visits,” she said.
As for the training of therapy dogs, Brouillette said therapy dogs require good obedience skills including, sit, stay, heel and leave it.
She said unlike service dogs who can not be regarded as pets, therapy dogs are family owned pets and their lives are just like those of any dog, but they must have a great temperament.
“They must be calm, enjoy attention from people and well trained in obedience,” she said.
Some people worry about the obedience training hurt dog’s nature. Brouillette said she could not agree. “A well-trained dog is a happy dog,” she said.
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