[NYAPRS Enews] GFT: Service Dogs Help People w Psychiatric Disablities

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Specially-Trained Dogs Help People With Life-Limiting Mental
Disabilities

By Erin Madison Great Falls Tribune May 31, 2011

 

When Alicia Smith first got Hunka, a Saint Bernard mix, in 2006 she just
wanted a pet - a dog to keep her company and to take hiking.

Since then, Hunka has transformed, thanks to years of training, into
much more than a pet. He is now Smith's psychiatric service dog and a
partner in Smith's recovery from mental illness.

Smith, of Bozeman, was first diagnosed with mental illness in her early
20s. She's since been diagnosed with bipolar 2, agoraphobia and
post-traumatic stress disorder.

After having Hunka, officially named Hunka Burning Love, for a couple
years, Smith's therapist suggested that Smith might benefit from a
psychiatric service dog. Smith spent about nine months researching the
subject and decided to train Hunka to fill that role.

Hunka was already a well-trained dog. He previously had passed the
canine good citizen test, an assessment offered by the American Kennel
Club. Smith also trained and certified him to be a therapy animal and
frequently took him to visit patients at the hospital.

Hunka now accompanies Smith everywhere she goes and helps her in a
variety of ways.

Smith experiences both auditory and visual hallucinations. When she has
hallucinations, she can look at Hunka and see if he's reacting to what
she's hearing or seeing. If he's not noticing the sounds or sights that
she is, Smith knows it's a hallucination.

"I actually had to learn to turn my reality over to him," Smith said.

Smith also falls frequently. Doctors are unsure as to why that happens,
but when it does, Hunka is trained to stand in front of Smith so that
she can use him to stand up.

Smith has also trained Hunka to retrieve her evening medications.

The term psychiatric service dog was first coined in 1997.

"I'm sure people were using (dogs) for psychiatric purposes before
that," said Joan Esnayra, founder of the Psychiatric Service Dog
Society, based in Arlington, Va.

Psychiatric service dogs, and other service animals, are protected under
the American Disability Act, which allows people with life-limiting
disabilities to use two types of animals - dogs and miniature horses -
to do work that benefits the person with the disability.

"Legally he's considered a medical assistive device," Smith said of her
service dog.

Esnayra founded the Psychiatric Service Dog Society after she got a
puppy and realized that the dog was alerting her to her manic episodes
before they happened.

The dog used to paw at her arm before a manic episode came on.

"He was very alarmed," she said. "It was really obvious for him."

It took a couple months for Esnayra to realize what the dog was
signaling. No one knows exactly how dogs can be aware of manic episodes
before they start, but it's likely that the dog can smell biochemical
changes.

"Dogs have 10,000 times the ability to smell that humans do," Smith
said.

Dogs also can sense the onset of a panic attack and alert their
handlers, Esnayra said.

Many people who have panic attacks become very reclusive because they're
afraid of having a panic attack in public. Having a dog that can alert
them to the attacks before they begin can help people live more normal
lives.

It's hard to train a dog to alert the handler to panic attacks or manic
episodes; instead it just takes time for the dog to become tuned into
those things.

"You have to give the dog the opportunity to be that tuned into you,"
Esnayra said.

It takes about a year to train a psychiatric service dog, Esnayra said.

The Psychiatric Service Dog Society recommends that handlers train their
own dogs and start with a young puppy.

"That this worked is pretty unusual," Smith said of training Hunka as an
adult dog. "Hunka and I are a really unusual story."

Psychiatric service dogs are gaining notoriety for their use with
veterans returning from war who have PTSD, but they can be trained to
benefit people with a wide variety of mental illness, Esnayra said.

 

For more information on psychiatric service dogs, visit
www.recoveryanimals.com or www.psychdog.org.

 

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20110531/LIFESTYLE/105310306/Sp
ecially-trained-dogs-help-people-life-limiting-mental-disabilities?odyss
ey=nav|head

 

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