Summary: Men With A Meaning

There are 3 different types of service dogs people can have: Emotional Support Animals, Therapy Animals, and Service Animals. Emotional Support Animals have one task and that is to provide comfort and support, emotionally, to someone who needs it and has a documented health condition. Therapy Animals are registered through an agency and their purpose is to provide therapeutic value to those who need it. Service animals are trained to perform tasks the owner simply cannot do on their own, guiding blind people, detecting seizures, helping people who have lost legs or arms.

In the field of therapy, there are numerous of therapy available out there for different type of individuals and situations as well. There is one type of therapy that usually contains people and animal, it is animal-assisted therapy is a therapeutic approach that brings animals and individuals with physical and/or emotional needs together to perform the therapy. Animal-assisted therapy tend to be focused on individuals either children or elderly for them to be able to connect with the animal thus feeling comfortable talking with the therapist. Pet therapy works for all ages, whether sick or not (Lanchnit, 2011). Although, this paper, most of the focus is on animal-assisted therapy towards children using dogs.

Emotional support animals can take on a multitude of jobs that “may include reminding the handler to take medicine, providing safety checks or room searches, or turning on lights for persons with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, interrupting self-mutilation by persons with dissociative identity disorders, and keeping disoriented individuals from danger,” (Brennan). These animals are often considered pets but are actually so much more than that, emotional support animals have a very important role in protecting the mental health of their owners and keep them safe. Not only do these animals protect people’s mental health but they also give people a purpose. Taking care of one of these dogs or other animals gives people something to take care of and focus on. Knowing that there is another living thing that relies on them can be very grounding and keep people connected to something outside of themselves.

“Isolated, his family deteriorating—“I couldn’t show affection, couldn’t hug my kids”—Soliz turned to the Palo Alto V.A. Medical Center” (Colin n.p.) “Soliz says his life is slowly coming back to him and he now can go to the movies without panicking—and hug and kiss his two kids” (Colin n.p.). Moore who explained in her dissertation that, “some of the veterans spoke of ways their Psychiatric Service Dog has bettered their relationships with other people, in particular through increasing interpersonal interactions, Similar to Ensayra and Love's (2008) finding of the dog serving as a "social lubricant”

Medical professionals have recently seen the positive effects animals are able to provide to their patients with mental disabilities. The emotional support dog MA recognizes

Dogs , a man’s best friend are now used for medical issues. They are really helpful and can even save our life. A service dog helps in many different ways. For example, dog are great at encouraging communication on adults and kids, helping blind people, and people with anxiety. They are very helpful and needed a lot.

Nepps, & Bruckno, (2014) and Souter & Miller,(2007) results were determined by pre/ post questionnaires and scales that viewed each participant mood before and after each session to see the outcome and effectiveness. It showed a dramatic increase in mood. It was also shown that that therapeutic alliance is enhanced with the addition of a therapy dog within a group setting with adult clients in a residential drug abuse treatment setting. Animal assisted therapy has also been shown to reduce feelings of anger and symptoms of PTSD, which can contribute to an overall improvement of mood and reduce depressive

Dogs can help us humans with mental health. Many service dogs are used to help people who are deaf or people that are blind. How about people with mental issues? Dogs not only help us with physical problems but also with mental problems like depression. In the article “Therapy pets and humans with mental health issues” the author “ dog time” starts to state in the 3 paragraph “Trained animals [iii] are used to benefit patients suffering with emotional and behavioral disorders, depression, autism, substance abuse, and dementia.” (2010) This can show how animals can help us with mental issues because animals can understand many struggles us humans have, because after their trained they can not only understand us but also

One of the most common pre-existing perceptions towards assistance dogs are that individuals using these animals are just taking advantage of the system. In the online survey it was found that men have a higher misrepresentation towards both service dogs and emotional support dogs compared to women clearly depicted by the table in Appendix C (Schoenfeld-Tacher, Hellyer, Cheung, & Kogan, 2017, p. 10). This may be because women are perceived to be more comforting, as research has found that “increased levels of testosterone correlate with increased levels of suspicion and decreased interpersonal trust” (Schoenfeld-Tacher, Hellyer, Cheung, & Kogan, 2017, p. 10).

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The Service Dog program focuses on training dogs with skills necessary to provide support to individuals with physical and mental health problems, specifically anxiety, panic disorders and depression. The organization itself does not provide service dogs to individuals. However, it provides soft benefits by assisting individuals with finding training professionals in their local areas. The training professionals in turn partner individuals with mental health problems with trained service dogs. Through the Service Dogs program individuals are provided with other soft benefits as well as they are directed to training schools and organizations with lesson plans, manuals, consulting services, and specific training support. Additionally, the program offers educational opportunities through public speaking events, clinics and seminars.

Some people have been known to have a fake “service dog” or “therapy dog” due to the idea that some people believe “oh my dog would be a perfect therapy dog he loves people” but they never do the training or the testing required to do this work. Many times the people want to do the work and not the dogs. This idea of “oh my dog would be perfect” can lead to a lot of problem from severity of bites to the lowness of stress and anxiety. A true therapy dog has to be a special balance of stability, lovability, tolerance, able to handle stress, and prepared to cope with the feeling that dogs and people can feel in these facilities ("Ethical Considerations in Animal”). While this problem is not an uncommon one it can be a very serious one, and can be remediated by proper education of the facilities and have stronger

Pet therapy is an incredible way to help people who have anxiety, depression, and to relieve stress. They are different from service animals because they are for everyone. Service animals are for the specific person they are assigned to. Therapy dogs are trained well and tested on how well they react to certain situations. For example, how they react to being around a lot of people and how well they can handle being pet by multiple people. They also get trained on how they handle large crowds and different sounds. The therapy animal we got to meet was a wonderful Lab named Kodi. he was very adorable and could handle all of us petting him and being all around him. His owner told us that he can sense when someone is in distress or feeling extreme

It has been proven that dogs will never judge you, or never not love you. In the article, “6 Ways Dogs Help Ease Depression Symptoms,” Therese states that, “As far as we know, dogs are without opinions, critiques, and verdicts. Even if you smell like their poop, they will snuggle up next to you.” This is very good, because most people who suffer from depression are very sad. But if you have a dog that always cuddles up next to you, you will not be as sad. Which means that you are slowly being cured of your depression. Dogs also have the ability to alter our behavior, and get our minds off of the bad things that happened throughout the whole day. Also in the article, “6 Ways Dogs Help Ease Depression Symptoms,” Therese says, “ I would come through the door in the evening and I'm annoyed. At what, I don't know. A million little snafus that happened through the day. I am dangerously close to taking it out on someone. However, before I can do that, my Lab-Chow walks up to me and pats me, wanting some attention. So I kneel down and pet her. She licks my face, and I smile. Voila! She altered my behavior.” This can help you out a lot. If you have depression, and you have the same attitude every day, nothing is ever going to change. But if you have a dog to get you to forget all the bad things that happened that day, you will be happy, because your attitude has

Firstly, dogs help with a humans individual health. As Healthy pets , “8 Ways Dogs Help People” , says owning a dog can help with peoples mental stability when they have PTSD , acute anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD , and etcetera. They can help to remind their human to take medication, wake up on time for school or work, and cope with emotional overload. They also provide a buffer in crowds by creating a physical boundary, and help to extinguish flashbacks by bringing their owner back to the here and now. They also contribute to certain therapy tactics because they are gentle

McConnell, Brown, Shoda, Stayton & Martin, (2011) did research that showed that psychological health, well-being, and happiness is higher in people who have a pet compared to people who do not have a pet. Owning a pet can provide owners with many direct, material benefits, e.g., scaring away prospective burglars, reducing vermin. There is also evidence that pets can have positive psychological implications, though, the majority of these studies are correlational and involve populations facing considerable life challenges (Wood et al, 2015).