Assisted Interventions Involving Animals, Humans and the Environment 71
(Sempik et al., 2010) and the animal, with its handler, becomes part of a
treatment plan for a particular patient (Johnson, 2009). This can include
assistance animals to help rehabilitate and support those with physical or
mental health conditions such as autism, anxiety disorders or attention
deficit hyperactivity disorders.
- Animal-assisted activities (AAA), an AAI that may have a therapeutic
effect, but is not a true therapy in a strict sense and can include both
health personnel or lay persons (Sempik et al., 2010). AAA gener-
ally include: non-trained dogs visiting homes for the elderly, hospitals
and nursing homes, providing patient support; activities with equines;
reading to dogs; petting farms; livestock farming camps, etc.; generic
emotional or companion support offered by pets to families, without
any direct or specific assistance function as such.
- Rescue and human support animals, include programmes where ani-
mals are trained to support or rescue humans, such as working dogs
or mine detection rats; medical detection and medical alert animals;
hearing dogs for the deaf or guide dogs for the blind; laboratory animals
supporting the development of research in controlled environments, etc.
While some animals benefit or enjoy the training in terms of increased
exercise, companionship, etc., there is little information on how animals
benefit from these interventions. Further evidence in this area should
help to identify true One Welfare interventions.
Animal rehoming can have positive impacts on those benefitting from
the animal companionship and on the wider community, by reducing the
size of stray cat or dog populations, as well as the number of unwanted
animals. This, overall, improves human and societal well-being. The value
and effectiveness of the animal–human bond in healthy individuals and in
animal-assisted interventions are increasingly demonstrated in industrial-
ized countries. However, there are still social and cultural aspects that need
to be understood when attempting to increase awareness of animal welfare
in this context, and more studies could be done, looking at wider human,
animal and societal interactions.
To date there has been considerable anecdotal evidence of the mutual
benefits of animal–human interaction (Beck and Katcher, 2003), and some
hypothesize that this is due to the clear ‘win–win’ outcomes observed. For
example, in some prison interventions inmates train dogs which would
otherwise to be euthanized, allowing them to be adoptable. The dogs get a
second chance at a happy life, and the inmates connect with another living
being and have the chance to give back to their communities (Wenner,
2012). However, there remains a paucity of evidence (Beck and Katcher,
2003; Johnson, 2009) to demonstrate mutual benefits. More effort to sys-
tematically evaluate these types of interventions in terms of benefits to
animals, humans (Hosey and Melfi, 2014) and the wider environment is
needed.
