David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
As Animal-Assisted Therapy Thrives, Enter the Cats
By Jennifer Kingson, New York Times
September 6, 2018
More research is done on the therapeutic benefits of dogs than on cats and other animals. But there are signs of change.
In her first bout with breast cancer, Kate Benjamin got by with a lumpectomy and radiation. The second time was far more grueling: a 14-hour double mastectomy in November, followed by an eight-week course of chemotherapy that ended in May.
Throughout it all, she has been surrounded by cats. Ms. Benjamin, 47, is an expert on feline-friendly interior design, and she keeps eight cats at her home in Phoenix and two in her nearby work studio. The cats are beloved pets as well as product-testers for her popular blog and newsletter, Hauspanther, where she showcases products for cats. And, now that she is ill again, they are also serving to help her heal.
“The cats are just such a great reminder of living in the moment,” Ms. Benjamin said. “They don’t worry about the past, they don’t worry about the future, and you have to do that with cancer.”
“Just having them close by is the best therapy,” Ms. Benjamin added. “If I’m sitting comfortably in a chair after surgery or I’m lying down just to feel their warmth and hear them purr, it’s comforting just to have them going around their regular business — whereas everyone else is texting and fussing over me.”
The use of animals for therapeutic purposes is flourishing. Dogs, miniature horses, cats, rabbits and even llamas are increasingly being used to help heal and elate the sick in hospitals, cancer clinics and other settings, even though research to support the efficacy of animal-assisted therapy is largely in its early stages.
Demand for therapy animals in clinics and workplaces — and even college campuses at exam time — sometimes outstrips supply, according to Pet Partners, the nation’s largest registry of therapy animals. The organization, based in Bellevue, Wash., has a database of 13,000 animals that make a collective three million visits a year. While 94 percent of the animals are dogs, the roster includes 200 cats and 20 llamas, said C. Annie Peters, the group’s president and chief executive.
“I will say it takes a very special cat” to become a therapy animal, Ms. Peters said. “There are regular grooming and hygiene requirements, and they have to enjoy getting in a car.”
Therapy animals are not the same as service animals, which are trained to assist people with disabilities. And while a house cat can comfort its owner, it would need to have a high tolerance for strangers and hugs to become a registered therapy cat.
Some do make the cut, including a cat named Xeli that works at Denver International Airport and one that regularly visits Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.
“When kids have pets at home, having a therapy animal normalizes their stay here,” said Jennifer Toomer-Cook, a spokeswoman for the hospital. “They help with pain management and fear, and they’re a diversion. Having a purring cat next to you creates calm.”
Evidence of the growing enthusiasm for therapy animals is cropping up in health and academic circles. The American Hospital Association held a webinar in July on how to set up or improve a hospital animal program. Aetna, the major health care company, is among the growing number of employers that bring therapy animals into the workplace to reduce stress and lift people’s moods.
Research and opinion are starting to coalesce around the benefits of animal-assisted therapy for people with autism, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other concerns. In a sign of the growing maturity of the field, Purdue University, in conjunction with the Human Animal Bond Research Institute, is amassing a library of work on the human/animal bond that now includes some 30,000 articles.
Still, many experts in the field say there is much more scientific work that needs to be done.
“People who practice animal-assisted interventions are so convinced of its value, its efficacy, that they kind of rush ahead with it and haven’t really waited for the research to catch up,” said Dr. James A. Serpell, a professor of ethics and animal welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and director of its Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society. “That doesn’t mean that the research won’t catch up.”
But Steven Feldman, executive director of the Human Animal Research Institute in Washington, said that the science supporting the health benefits of therapy animals was well established. “Researchers always call for more research, that’s what they do,” he said, adding that there was already a “tremendous amount of money and research and energy flowing into the area of human-animal interaction.”
The National Institutes of Health started funding research on human-animal interaction in 2008, said Dr. Marguerite E. O’Haire, assistant professor of human-animal interaction at Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. And that, she said, “has really changed the landscape in this field.”
Many variables are hard to factor into a scientific study on animal-assisted therapy, like whether a patient fears or dislikes animals and whether the animal in question is familiar with the patient. Anthrozoologists, scientists who examine relationships between animals and people, say that a loyal pet will have a different effect than a therapy dog or random dog on the street.
Studies in this field are also “hard to randomize,” said Dr. O’Haire, whose own research has looked at the potential benefits of classroom guinea pigs for children with autism. Scientists who are testing a drug, for example, can easily give some participants a look-alike placebo. But what is the equivalent in a trial that pairs patients with therapy dogs?
Dr. O’Haire noted that far more research is done on dogs than on cats and other animals. But there are signs of change. In March, for example, a team led by scientists at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California-Davis published a study in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science about interactions between family house cats and children with autism. While the study had a number of caveats — it pointed out, for example, that people who had “positive relationships with their cats” were probably more likely to participate — it found that cats in families with a child with autism-spectrum disorder “often provided valuable bonding, attention and calming affect to the child.”
It has been well proven, Dr. Serpell said, that human relationships and social interactions are extremely good for someone’s health, boosting the immune system and cardiovascular functions. “The question that then arises is, can animals fulfill this kind of social support function?” he said. “And we’re beginning to find evidence that maybe they can, and in some cases, maybe they’re better than humans.”
And that, Dr. Serpell said, is “where it gets really interesting, because we don’t know what these animals are doing that seems to have such a big impact.” Already, he said, people are starting to recommend dogs for veterans with PTSD, because the patients are “in a permanent state of high alert and chronic stress, and having these dogs around really does seem to calm them down, make them feel less anxious all the time.”
The hormone oxytocin plays a key role in the way animals can soothe humans, Dr. Serpell said. “The petting and the physical contact side of things is critical in terms of oxytocin release,” he said. “Physical contact with something warm and fuzzy and soft is also a good trigger.”
Ms. Benjamin, whose feline style business I profiled in The Times in 2013, said that the desire for physical contact may work in both directions. “Since I started chemo, it seems that my gray tabby Andy needs to be touching me almost constantly,” she wrote to me in April, about halfway through her treatment. She has been writing a second blog, FelineSoFine, to chronicle her cancer journey.
In August, Ms. Benjamin said she was feeling much better, though she still faces more surgery. Sadly, her favorite cat, Ando, the one who would sit on her pillow and put his paw on her head, died in June, not long after she finished chemo. “I just miss him so much,” she said by phone. “I feel like, in some sort of ‘woo-woo’ way, he was there for me through this, and then he was like, ‘O.K., you’re good, I’ve got to go.’”
By Jennifer Kingson, New York Times
September 6, 2018
More research is done on the therapeutic benefits of dogs than on cats and other animals. But there are signs of change.
In her first bout with breast cancer, Kate Benjamin got by with a lumpectomy and radiation. The second time was far more grueling: a 14-hour double mastectomy in November, followed by an eight-week course of chemotherapy that ended in May.
Throughout it all, she has been surrounded by cats. Ms. Benjamin, 47, is an expert on feline-friendly interior design, and she keeps eight cats at her home in Phoenix and two in her nearby work studio. The cats are beloved pets as well as product-testers for her popular blog and newsletter, Hauspanther, where she showcases products for cats. And, now that she is ill again, they are also serving to help her heal.
“The cats are just such a great reminder of living in the moment,” Ms. Benjamin said. “They don’t worry about the past, they don’t worry about the future, and you have to do that with cancer.”
“Just having them close by is the best therapy,” Ms. Benjamin added. “If I’m sitting comfortably in a chair after surgery or I’m lying down just to feel their warmth and hear them purr, it’s comforting just to have them going around their regular business — whereas everyone else is texting and fussing over me.”
The use of animals for therapeutic purposes is flourishing. Dogs, miniature horses, cats, rabbits and even llamas are increasingly being used to help heal and elate the sick in hospitals, cancer clinics and other settings, even though research to support the efficacy of animal-assisted therapy is largely in its early stages.
Demand for therapy animals in clinics and workplaces — and even college campuses at exam time — sometimes outstrips supply, according to Pet Partners, the nation’s largest registry of therapy animals. The organization, based in Bellevue, Wash., has a database of 13,000 animals that make a collective three million visits a year. While 94 percent of the animals are dogs, the roster includes 200 cats and 20 llamas, said C. Annie Peters, the group’s president and chief executive.
“I will say it takes a very special cat” to become a therapy animal, Ms. Peters said. “There are regular grooming and hygiene requirements, and they have to enjoy getting in a car.”
Therapy animals are not the same as service animals, which are trained to assist people with disabilities. And while a house cat can comfort its owner, it would need to have a high tolerance for strangers and hugs to become a registered therapy cat.
Some do make the cut, including a cat named Xeli that works at Denver International Airport and one that regularly visits Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.
“When kids have pets at home, having a therapy animal normalizes their stay here,” said Jennifer Toomer-Cook, a spokeswoman for the hospital. “They help with pain management and fear, and they’re a diversion. Having a purring cat next to you creates calm.”
Evidence of the growing enthusiasm for therapy animals is cropping up in health and academic circles. The American Hospital Association held a webinar in July on how to set up or improve a hospital animal program. Aetna, the major health care company, is among the growing number of employers that bring therapy animals into the workplace to reduce stress and lift people’s moods.
Research and opinion are starting to coalesce around the benefits of animal-assisted therapy for people with autism, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other concerns. In a sign of the growing maturity of the field, Purdue University, in conjunction with the Human Animal Bond Research Institute, is amassing a library of work on the human/animal bond that now includes some 30,000 articles.
Still, many experts in the field say there is much more scientific work that needs to be done.
“People who practice animal-assisted interventions are so convinced of its value, its efficacy, that they kind of rush ahead with it and haven’t really waited for the research to catch up,” said Dr. James A. Serpell, a professor of ethics and animal welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and director of its Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society. “That doesn’t mean that the research won’t catch up.”
But Steven Feldman, executive director of the Human Animal Research Institute in Washington, said that the science supporting the health benefits of therapy animals was well established. “Researchers always call for more research, that’s what they do,” he said, adding that there was already a “tremendous amount of money and research and energy flowing into the area of human-animal interaction.”
The National Institutes of Health started funding research on human-animal interaction in 2008, said Dr. Marguerite E. O’Haire, assistant professor of human-animal interaction at Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. And that, she said, “has really changed the landscape in this field.”
Many variables are hard to factor into a scientific study on animal-assisted therapy, like whether a patient fears or dislikes animals and whether the animal in question is familiar with the patient. Anthrozoologists, scientists who examine relationships between animals and people, say that a loyal pet will have a different effect than a therapy dog or random dog on the street.
Studies in this field are also “hard to randomize,” said Dr. O’Haire, whose own research has looked at the potential benefits of classroom guinea pigs for children with autism. Scientists who are testing a drug, for example, can easily give some participants a look-alike placebo. But what is the equivalent in a trial that pairs patients with therapy dogs?
Dr. O’Haire noted that far more research is done on dogs than on cats and other animals. But there are signs of change. In March, for example, a team led by scientists at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California-Davis published a study in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science about interactions between family house cats and children with autism. While the study had a number of caveats — it pointed out, for example, that people who had “positive relationships with their cats” were probably more likely to participate — it found that cats in families with a child with autism-spectrum disorder “often provided valuable bonding, attention and calming affect to the child.”
It has been well proven, Dr. Serpell said, that human relationships and social interactions are extremely good for someone’s health, boosting the immune system and cardiovascular functions. “The question that then arises is, can animals fulfill this kind of social support function?” he said. “And we’re beginning to find evidence that maybe they can, and in some cases, maybe they’re better than humans.”
And that, Dr. Serpell said, is “where it gets really interesting, because we don’t know what these animals are doing that seems to have such a big impact.” Already, he said, people are starting to recommend dogs for veterans with PTSD, because the patients are “in a permanent state of high alert and chronic stress, and having these dogs around really does seem to calm them down, make them feel less anxious all the time.”
The hormone oxytocin plays a key role in the way animals can soothe humans, Dr. Serpell said. “The petting and the physical contact side of things is critical in terms of oxytocin release,” he said. “Physical contact with something warm and fuzzy and soft is also a good trigger.”
Ms. Benjamin, whose feline style business I profiled in The Times in 2013, said that the desire for physical contact may work in both directions. “Since I started chemo, it seems that my gray tabby Andy needs to be touching me almost constantly,” she wrote to me in April, about halfway through her treatment. She has been writing a second blog, FelineSoFine, to chronicle her cancer journey.
In August, Ms. Benjamin said she was feeling much better, though she still faces more surgery. Sadly, her favorite cat, Ando, the one who would sit on her pillow and put his paw on her head, died in June, not long after she finished chemo. “I just miss him so much,” she said by phone. “I feel like, in some sort of ‘woo-woo’ way, he was there for me through this, and then he was like, ‘O.K., you’re good, I’ve got to go.’”
