07 Oct In Defense of Fido
Evidence has been piling up for years: animals can have great therapeutic effects of people of all ages.
While scanning the web for research I saw that the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine held an entire conference on “animal assisted interventions in adolescent mental health”. While I was a bit surprised it should come as no shock to any of us that animals can have a definite healing or soothing effect.
Last week we discussed the need each of us has to make contact with others. This need is so great, in fact, that a lack of contact can have profound effects upon physical, as well as mental, well-being.
When the Iron Curtain was pulled back in the 1990’s the Western world was astonished at the number of profoundly disabled children in Eastern European orphanages. Upon review of records it was found that many of these mentally and physically delayed children suffered from no disease or abnormality at birth. It appears, rather, that these children failed to thrive and develop from a lack of contact. They were fed, bathed and diapered, but otherwise experienced little human touch. Under Communist policy it was considered impractical and unnecessary, so children were starved of this critical resource.
You might be interested to know that large orphanages began to disappear in the United States in the late 1940’s when medical professionals began to observe that infants were much more likely to survive if someone simply held them regularly. The “research” leading to this conclusion began with the discovery that children on one wing of a particular hospital had much higher recovery rates as a direct result of one cleaning woman who routinely held and sang to children on the night shift.
The power of contact cannot be overestimated.
So it should come as no surprise that children and adults alike benefit from having someone—or something—available to touch and hold.
But caring for animals, even livestock, provides another benefit. Children can learn and grow in confidence as a result of giving care to something that relies upon them.
As Michael Popkin observes in his “Active Parenting” books and videos, children and teens need to learn to contribute in some meaningful way in order to learn to get their long-term needs met. It will not be enough for others to reach out and make contact with them; they will only develop an enduring sense of belonging as they give and address the needs of others.
Not all children will have the opportunity to help care for younger siblings in a substantial way. While not certainly not the equivalent, children can benefit from feeding, grooming, petting and cleaning up after a pet.
My little brother benefited enormously from caring for an abandoned lamb with a misshapen jaw. “Smut”—named after one of my father’s co-workers with a similarly misshapen jaw—would have died had she not been adopted. My brother took care of this needy little lamb shortly after the passing of our brother, his twin. Smut filled some holes in our hearts until she grew to adulthood and became a caring mother herself.
Our children have had a menagerie of pets over the years, beginning with the snails our three year-old daughter kept in a jar by her bed before graduating to rats. (Apartment life really limits pet options!)
We give our parents a hard time for being so invested in their three Schnauzers. In truth we are jealous because we are pretty much convinced that they are the favorite “children” and that they will inherit anything my parents have to pass on.
But as I type this article in the wee hours of the morning Harley, our 125-pound yellow lab, snores and rolls over to be closer to my feet. At 51 I am still working to take of an animal, endlessly vacuuming in hopes of making his presence less obvious to visitors.
Silly as it may sound I am grateful that I get to take care of that big lug who has so dutifully stood watch over us for the past twelve years. I will really miss him when he is gone.