Animal Angels in the News

Minal Lonkar – Kavishwar, a Clinical Psychologist and a certified practitioner of Animal Assisted Therapy from Delta Society, USA speaks about the benefits of Animal Therapy to Shailesh Kulkarni. She is also the founder of Animal Angels Foundation, India’s only first organisation of trained professionals working in the field of animal therapy

How did the idea of animal therapy come to your mind?
Through my experience, I realised was that animals give you a lot of love and in return, they hardly expect anything. This experience urged me to involve animals for the well being of people. At the same time, I started a project at Jidda School, Thane for the mentally challenged, where I trained a therapy dog for the mentally challenged children. This was when I could blend the two fields ‘Study of Human Behaviour’ and ‘Knowledge of Animals’ behaviour’.

How did you think that this therapy would be beneficial and useful for the mentally and physically ill?
During my internship, I noticed a case where a depressed patient who was not ready to interact with others, opened up and started expressing himself when a pet was introduced to him. This is when I realised that this is what the mentally and physically ill patients will need. Moreover, the results of my first project at Jidda School in 2002 confirmed this.

How does animal therapy work? What are its benefits?
The benefit of having an Animal Therapy along with any other therapy is that animals provide a lot of motivation, happiness, openness to other treatment forms, willingness to take part in various activities etc. Spastic Children, who cannot lift their hand, are encouraged to pick up the ball and throw it to the therapy dog. This kind of motivation is something that the therapy dog provides.

Being psychologists we know that getting a break through with the patient and making him talk is very important. In a typical clinical setting the patient who comes to a psychologist is tense and worried about being judged. If there is pet in a clinical setting, it eases the tension and the whole perspective of looking at clinical psychologist is different. Oh! He has a pet; he has a nice dog in his clinic. This encourages the patient to come to the clinic. All the hidden walls in his personality vanish, their defensiveness vanishes and patient opens up.
And the psychologist can take it from here and move further in the treatment of the patient. The important thing is to open up the patient’s psyche. That is where the Animals help.

Which animals are preferred for animal therapy?
Dogs are the most preferred animals. The selection of the animal depends upon the patient to be treated and also the environment setting. Another good option is fish. Even doctors recommend patients with high B.P to watch the movement of fish. This reduces stress. Other than these, animals like horses, dolphins, rabbits, ferrets, and parrots are also used abroad.

Tell us about your current projects and your therapy animals.
Our Animal Angels Therapy Team consist of Kutty the Labrador, who is the first trained therapy dog working at Jidda school Thane, followed by Spongy the Golden retriever, who is trained to work with autistic and hyperactive children, Ronnie the Labrador working with children with to bring smiles on the faces of the spastic children there. We also conduct programs for other schools throughout Mumbai and Pune.

What are your future plans?
My future plans include spreading awareness about this therapy and benefits of having animals in homes. I also plan to research work in this field and train people for this work all around India.

Did you get support for this work?
It was Shyamashree Bhosle, the Principal of Jidda School who stood by my first project all along and made it possible by giving it all the support it required. And as I started getting results, parents of the patients themselves came and encouraged this work.