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A Dog’s Perspective on Animal-Assisted Interventions

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Pets as Sentinels, Forecasters and Promoters of Human Health

Abstract

The practice of implementing dogs into therapeutic environments is an emerging field. Despite the increasingly growing scientific interest on human health outcomes, research efforts into the canine perspective of animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) have been scarce. The demands therapy dogs encounter during their performance in therapeutic environments however go beyond the challenge of accepting close social contact with strangers. Physiological and behavioral welfare indicators and dog handler surveys to identify stress related to AAIs have been used across the scientific literature. However, the current body of research presents a conflicting picture, making it difficult to generalize study results. Research indicates that frequency and duration of AAI sessions, novelty of the environment, controllability, age, and familiarity of recipients modulate animal welfare indicators. The biopsychosocial model of dog health in AAIs is proposed as a multidimensional framework of human–animal interaction effects on dogs. Moreover, training methods, attachment to handler, and inequity aversion in dogs are discussed as factors likely to affect welfare. This chapter highlights that clear conclusions on how the well-being of dogs is influenced by the performance in AAIs cannot be drawn due to the heterogeneity of programs, recipient and session characteristics, small dog sample sizes, and methodological limitations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Comparative Medicine, The Interuniversity Messerli Research Institute of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University Vienna and University Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Lisa Maria Glenk

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  1. Lisa Maria Glenk
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Correspondence to Lisa Maria Glenk .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal

    M. Ramiro Pastorinho

  2. CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials, Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Ana Catarina A. Sousa

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Glenk, L.M. (2020). A Dog’s Perspective on Animal-Assisted Interventions. In: Pastorinho, M., Sousa, A. (eds) Pets as Sentinels, Forecasters and Promoters of Human Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30734-9_15

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