Pets | Relationship | Psychology
Are You and Your Animals Codependents?
Maybe it’s true that every dog is a therapy dog.
Do you joke about loving dogs but people — not so much? Can you imagine a life without some form of fur or feathers littering your living quarters? What would Fido Freud say about your attitude?
In an online article in Medical News Today author Jennifer Berry defines codependency a someone who is needy and dependent upon somebody else. “I can’t live without you.”
Hmmm. Domestic animals certainly depend on humans for life support basics like food and shelter. And some Labs and Goldens come to mind when I think “emotionally needy”. Then again, humans enjoy, even crave, animal companionship for the lifestyle benefits and emotional support it offers.
But codependence? Probably not. Psychologists note that it an extreme cycle of neediness coming from both sides of the relationship. So, if you’re an animal addict like me, call yourself passionate but not psychotic.
Friends With Benefits
The COVID crisis of 2020 emptied animal shelters around the country. People didn’t need psychologists to tell them that life in lockdown would be better with fur for fins or feathers.
And why not ask animals for help during a modern crisis? Humans have looked to animals for help for two-and-a-half million years according to paleoanthropologist Pat Shipman of Penn State University. Shipman believes that human evolution got a serious boost when our early ancestors learned how to cooperate with animals.
We modern hominids thump our chests about how cleverly we’ve learned to incorporate animal assistance in a mushrooming number of therapeutic modalities. Sorry. folks. According to historical records, the ancient Greeks beat us to it over 2000 years ago when they recruited horses to rehabilitate wounded warriors.
Your Pet Therapist Is In
The number of organizations training or certifying or providing dogs and their volunteer handlers has mushroomed, too. So have the ways people are trained or certified to run programs or volunteer in them. These animal therapies are sliced and diced in different ways depending on the settings in which they occur and the types of interaction between man and beast.
Service Animals These hard workers are the animal world’s superheroes. Think search and rescue. Think law enforcement. Think guide dogs for the blind, hearing dogs for the deaf, support animals for the physically disabled, and highly trained “medical alert” animals for people with specific medical or psychiatric issues.
Land of Pure Gold, a Golden Retriever website, maintains an all breeds, state-by-state list of service dog providers on its site.
The Assistance Dogs International website lists its accredited members by country and by region.
Animal-Assisted Therapy Animals This moniker describes programs that pair dogs, cats, horses, and other animals with people to provide physical therapy, socialization, communications, improvement in self-esteem, and other “soft” therapies. Training and certification vary widely from a few months of classes to college degrees.
The American Kennel Club maintains an extensive list of certified dog therapy programs.
The Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International has over 850 member centers in the U.S. and overseas.
Emotional Support Animals Lines get a little blurry here. Licensed mental health professionals can prescribe emotional support animals. An emotional support dog may sound like a service dog. But unlike service dogs, emotional support dogs aren’t trained to perform specific tasks. Their job is just to make you feel better. Even a letter from your psychiatrist doesn’t automatically give an emotional support dog the same access rights as guide dogs for a blind person.
In December 2020, the Department of Transportation changed its rules in December 2020. Airlines no longer are required to give emotional support animals the same accommodations given to legitimate service dogs. Why? Some people saw a loophole in the prior rules and found online enablers to sell them papers that allowed their pets to fly free.
Companion Animals In my humble opinion, this is the sweet spot where every dog (or cat or horse or gerbil or…) offers humans a therapeutic touch. No certification, special aptitude, or doctor's note required. Acquire a pet then just add food, water, and love. Before long, you have a soulmate.
By the way, remember Fido Freud? That’s a pseudonym for a real dog. Jofi was a Chow who assisted Sigmund Freud in his patient sessions. Jofi didn’t just lie around and snore. And to Freud’s credit, he noticed how Jofi’s behavior changed when patients were either tense or relaxed. He used those observations to gauge the patient’s emotional mood during the session.
Kind of changes my mind a bit about ole Sigmund.
© Bonnie Kreitler 2021. All rights reserved.
Writer Bonnie Kreitler creates content to help fellow animal addicts build rewarding relationships with the critters in their lives. See more at www.ramblingdog.com
