While I largely agree with this article at the Washington Post on animal-assisted therapy:
A therapy-animal trend grips the United States. The San Francisco airport now deploys a pig to calm frazzled travelers. Universities nationwide bring dogs (and a donkey) onto campus to soothe students during finals. Llamas comfort hospital patients, pooches provide succor at disaster sites and horses are used to treat sex addiction.
And that duck on a plane? It might be an emotional-support animal prescribed by a mental health professional.
The trend, which has accelerated hugely since its initial stirrings a few decades ago, is underpinned by a widespread belief that interaction with animals can reduce distress — whether it happens over brief caresses at the airport or in long-term relationships at home. Certainly, the groups offering up pets think this, as do some mental health professionals. But the popular embrace of pets as furry therapists is kindling growing discomfort among some researchers in the field, who say it has raced far ahead of scientific evidence.
I also have some reservations about it. My first reservation is that the author of the article is conflating different things as though they were one thing. No distinction is made among therapy animals, service animals, and comfort animals and, well, they’re very different. Here’s a quick example of a difference. If someone asks if you want to pet his or her dog, it’s probably not a service dog.
Part of what I think is going on in the United States is a sort of pendulum swing. By comparison with some other countries dogs in particular are very restricted. In France seeing dogs in restaurants or stores is a commonplace (the French tend to ignore “No Pets” signs). Today more and more businesses, e.g. Amazon, allow workers to bring their pets with them to work. If we were less restrictive here, perhaps so many people wouldn’t be looking for pretexts for bringing their pets with them.
And there are some people who don’t like that one bit. Some people have cultural problems with it.
My other reservation is that just because something doesn’t have iron clad proof doesn’t constitute iron clad proof that it’s ineffective. In the past we have spent billions supporting programs that are now considered suspect. When something is cheap and benign it deserves to be cut a little slack. I think that more attention should be devoted to ensuring that the practice is benign.
The reality is that not every person should have animals and not every animal is a candidate for every setting.
I am my cat’s therapy animal.
There’s a T-shirt I’ve seen. On one side is a picture of a dog labeled “Man’s Best Friend”. Alongside that is a picture of a cat labeled “Man’s Self-Absorbed Roommate”.