“What the heck Zeph?” I asked, amused but also sympathetic to his obviously startled emotional state. 

At six months old, Zephyr seemed to be having a fearful response to something that simply didn’t warrant fear.  Was he having a mental break?  Exposing a nervous temperament that would prevent me from realizing my dream of working alongside him to provide animal-assisted speech therapy? 

Or was he simply having a moment of anxiety as part of normal adolescent dog development?

Since he recovered quickly, I didn’t dwell on this incident.  But it did alert me that we might be entering Zephyr’s next “fear period.”  While I’ve gone through this stage with past puppies, I wanted to be more informed in order to feel confident in handling my pup’s upcoming months. 

I reached out to Tim Pratt, a trainer specializing in helping the owners of anxious and reactive dogs.  As a former Queensland, Australia Corrective Services tactical response dog handler and instructor, Tim has 13 years’ experience training and handling tactical response and drug detection dogs in some of the most challenging environments imaginable.  He now runs Diverse Dogs Dog Training and Development to promote the well-being of both dogs and their human companions.

I learned so much dog psychology and practical training advice taking part in a recent online course with Tim that I knew he’d be a great resource to learn more about puppy fear periods…

Usually credited to Noel Burch of Gordon Training International, who began teaching the theory in the 1970’s, the Levels of Competency Model proposes that learners of a complex skill will progress through four levels of development if they desire mastery.   

I first discovered this model years ago while improving my horsemanship. I was at the second stage of the model , conscious incompetence.  This was, nonetheless, improvement from the first stage in which I didn’t even know what to do or what I was missing, unconscious incompetence.

So what’s the difference?  In both stages I was equally bad at the skill, yet the second stage suggests a huge improvement because I was at least aware of how bad I was. 

Sound miserable?  It is!  The transition between these two stages can feel unbearable and you’re likely left incredibly self-conscious.  It’s where you’re most likely to give up, assuming that everyone but you seems to be able to perform this skill naturally while your brain (or body, for more athletic endeavors) just can’t figure it out. 

But there’s good news!  You can’t improve on a skill you don’t realize is difficult.  So owning the stage of conscious incompetence and pushing through to add knowledge and opportunities to pursue the next stage of competence is key. 

“It’s alright to be little bitty.”  -Alan Jackson

In last week’s article, two animal-assisted therapists who work with horses described the challenges of adding these larger therapy animals to their team, as well as the personal and professional joys they bring.  But what if you’re looking for a way to provide animal-assisted speech therapy without the high costs and care an equine requires? 

At the opposite end of the therapy animal spectrum, Gen Ward, a Speech-Language Pathologist and owner of The Speech Express, has found guinea pigs to be a great addition to the speech therapy dogs at her clinic.

Animal-assisted therapists are incorporating a variety of furry and feathery friends into their work and seeing the benefits of the human-animal bond on their clients young and old alike.

But what does it actually look like having a miniature horse or a room full of guinea pigs helping a client in a therapy session?  I’ve asked a few pioneering animal-assisted therapists exactly that, and here is what they offered… 

In part one, we’ll delve into the details of working with equines, and in part two we’ll discover the ins and outs of keeping guinea pigs in a busy clinic.

A now four-year-old Brittany spaniel, Sky is the highest energy dog partner I’ve worked with.  Most of the time she’s an absolute delight.  But…

she can also be tightly-wound and a bit much to manage!

Sky’s temperament is incredibly similar to that of the late Johnny Utah and it brings me great joy to see her wagging tail and enthusiastic ear prick whenever she is actively included in sessions. 

The constantly wired brain and body is the same, only younger and therefore with greater stamina.  And sometimes this gets tricky…

So what are my priorities in these early months when Zephyr is still a puppy with a relatively short attention span, a rapidly growing body, and an open mind?  In a nutshell, body handling, luring and socialization.  Let’s look more closely at why each of these are great targets to address early in a therapy pup’s life…

What do Dr. Suess and a professional dog trainer have in common? 

They both recognize that life is not easy and straightforward.  Sometimes we get stuck. 

And sometimes it takes help to get unstuck. 

I consider myself lucky to have curated a great team of professional guides to help me when I get stuck on a challenge in my therapy dog journey.  At various points I’ve called on each of them for help “un-slumping” when I just couldn’t figure out a solution on my own.  

“Hold her head!  Hold her head!  Don’t let her bite me!” the third grade boy shrieked repeatedly, hiding behind his mom.

I felt flummoxed.  It turned out that yes, he loved animal facts, devouring documentaries and books about animal life cycles and migrations.  In fact, his preferred topics on this day, once settled, was an extinct species of porpoise and the unique properties of brine shrimp. 

However…he’d never actually had close encounters with a live dog before. 

I’m always grateful that my therapy dogs are resilient enough that situations like this one don’t rattle them for long, but ideally I’d like work days to be joyful for my canine co-therapists.  While most sessions with my therapy dogs run fairly smoothly, I’ve definitely found a few ways to refine my animal-assisted speech therapy over the years

So here’s the lesson I took away from this situation, plus two more changes I’ve made since becoming an animal-assisted interventionist:

Therapy dogs can play a number of different roles within animal-assisted speech therapy sessions, but I have been most grateful for their ability to help switch an anxious or resistant child from a state of fight-or-flight to a calmer state.

Having worked with kids with emotional and behavioral challenges most of my career, the foundational truth I always focus on is that if a child isn’t calm they can’t be expected to learn. Whether it’s a speech sound, grammar skill, or coping strategy, a child who is feeling panicked simply won’t retain the lesson no matter how well explained. My view of these kids flipped entirely when I learned to think of oppositional behaviors as panic attacks turned outward. My different speech therapy dogs have been able to help anxious kids in different ways.

Poor Bodhi was a wreck.

Always sensitive to loud noises, this thunderstorm had been rolling over our house all night, leaving him trembling and restless.  Nothing my husband or I did seemed to help. 

Then, just as he seemed to be relaxing a bit the hail hit, pounding the metal roof of our little house in an absolute cacophony. That was it.  Bodhi jumped down, plastered himself behind the toilet, and refused to come out or acknowledge us in any way.

The next morning, still wide-eyed and with tail drooping low, he tentatively ate his breakfast and clung to me as I set about morning chores.  When a distant plane quietly roared overhead, far enough away I wouldn’t have otherwise even noticed it, Bodhi bolted back to his hiding spot behind the toilet.  I worried I’d never get my happy little pup back.

Fortunately this story has a happy ending.  Bodhi did indeed gradually return to his normal self, still jumpy with loud noises as always but otherwise carefree and cuddly. 

So what does any of this have to do with working with animal-assisted speech therapy? 

Bodhi’s story illustrates the concepts of “flooding” and “trigger stacking”, which along with anthropomorphism are situations we need to try to avoid while building up a therapy dog’s working skills and confidence... 

While it will be a year or more until I know for sure if he will be just a companion dog for my family or also a new animal-assisted speech therapy partner, let’s take a look at what factors I considered when adding my latest family member…

Out of the corner of my eye I see his blue eyes look up and for a moment our gazes lock. I take a deep breath and feel instantly calmer, smiling at him as I reach into my pocket for a well-earned treat.

To other customers it probably doesn’t seem like Bodhi is working at all. Only I know how much he improves my quality of life for these two years he’s worked as my service dog...

What happens when you take children who have experienced trauma, abuse, or years of social and academic failure and introduce an open-hearted therapy dog to their educational experience?

Speech-language pathologists Kimbra Kern and Noel Tang have watched amazing connections form with even the most challenging of clients—children and adolescents who need intensive support in specialized educational settings due to severe emotional and behavioral difficulties. 

Following up on part one, in which animal-assisted interventionists hared how they include therapy dogs in social-emotional lessons for preschoolers and elementary age students in general education, let’s explore even more possibilities for enhancing children’s development…

A preschooler and a senior citizen connect over their love of animals.  A fifth-grade class learns to identify and express kindness by watching a therapy dog’s examples.  A girl shunned by her classmates finds moments of peace interacting with a special canine.  A teen refuses to participate in a class social gathering until hearing how her favorite four-legged friend would handle the situation and is then able to share the joy of roasting marshmallows with classmates. 

What do these stories have in common?  Despite the incredible range of ages and abilities, all these individuals experienced the power of the human-animal bond by meeting therapy dogs and their determined, creative, animal-assisted therapists or educators!

“Hmm…Now what do I do?”

The question running through my mind was in response to a new client who was strongly disinterested in every activity I had planned for the session, but later I realized it also applied to the next five years of my career.

I’ve been including therapy dogs—a total of four now—into my private speech, language, and reading therapy clinic for a little over five years, and it has changed me professionally and personally. I’ve learned what does and doesn’t work, how to better read each of my dog’s individual communication styles, and even written a book to help other clinicians. My skills in animal-assisted therapy have expanded exponentially, and yet…

I still have moments when I’m at a loss.

Here are three recent challenges I’ve faced while working with my amazing speech therapy dogs:

In Paws for Progess, my new book about therapy dogs written for SLPs, I used stories from real life therapy sessions to illustrate various therapy dog concepts.

Since the book edits have finished, I’ve continued to have what I call “magical moments”; those times when a therapy dog’s presence made the difference between a “meh” session and an “aha” moment for a child.

While I realize it isn’t truly magic—a therapy dog’s novelty, affiliative nature, and regulating presence can explain the increased effort and success children experience—it’s hard not to think of it that way. So here’s three extra vignettes for your enjoyment:

Reading the new 6th edition of the Handbook of Animal-Assisted Therapy, I was struck by the repeated and overarching emphasis on therapy animal welfare. 

Struck in positive way, as I absolutely agree that a content therapy animal is a much safer therapy animal.  But also struck in how little recognition was given to the possible benefits a therapy animal might experience from engaging in this work. 

At the risk of sounding like I’m just trying to justify what I do, I’d like to discuss three features of animal-assisted speech therapy that I think should also receive consideration while having a balanced discussion of therapy dog welfare…

Five years ago I was a newly minted animal-assisted interventionist.  So new, in fact, that I hadn’t even heard that term yet, let alone all the other acronyms that make up this field. I was just flying by the seat of my pants, figuring out ways to incorporate my young Labradane Delta Dawn into speech therapy sessions to help calm anxious kids and motivate practice in more resistant ones. 

There were amazing moments and moments that didn’t go as planned, but I was learning something new every time she accompanied me to work. Partnering with Delta one or two days a week was going well, but I couldn’t imagine her thriving with even more time at work.  However…I did know a dog that was crying out for a job to do. 

A dog that made fast friends with everyone he had ever met...

A dog that literally smiled and made happy sneezes when people came through the door...

A dog that also had an extremely high energy level and very little obedience!

Like the family in the classic children’s book Rattletrap Car, I wondered…"Do you think it just might work?" And Johnny Utah, my eight-year-old Brittany Spaniel, responded with a resounding “Go!”

This past summer I had the delightful challenge of introducing a speech-language pathology graduate student to animal-assisted therapy as she completed her practicum requirements. Stefanie Brandt joined me with experienced speech therapy dog Delta as well as with Sky, who was just starting her therapy dog journey at the time. I was curious to learn Stefanie’s observations after 12 weeks of working with the dogs in a limited capacity while her primary focus was on learning the day-to-day strategies of speech, language, and reading therapy…