hannah | I have to get this out of my head.

I had a doctor's appointment today - not with a medical doctor, which is why there was a dog in the office. Look, I don't care. I don't care. Doesn't matter to me what it wants or that it gets weird if left alone. I freaking do not care, I didn't want it in the office with me. Its presence put me on edge and I wouldn't have been able to focus or concentrate with it in the same room as me. Once it was outside, I couldn't even get myself to look at it, and I had to work to keep my attention on the point of the visit.

I think at this point, I can move it from aversion and wariness to outright phobia. Jesus, but they make me uncomfortable and wary and even thinking about it hours later gets my bile up and my body shaking.

I did my best to explain to her why I prefer most other domestic animals like cats and horses and birds - that their communication is more in body language than in their faces, how cats and horses don't use their faces very much compared to dogs and how birds effectively don't have faces.

A few weeks ago, I told someone I have more experience with horses than with dogs, which she found somewhat astonishing. I told her that I'd much rather have another rabbit, or rats, as a pet. "Quiet animals," she said.

"No!" I told her. "Prey animals! Acutely aware of the tiniest change in posture and tremendously responsive to it!"

Not an experience I get with domesticated canines. Some of the most unresponsive animals I've ever encountered.

Today the doctor tried to tell me all the dog wanted to do was love, which is fabulous for the dog, but didn't strike me as a tremendously effective thing to say to someone who was really trying to focus on a specific reason for being there.

I asked, though, and next time I'm in, she's not bringing it with her. Which: thank fuck.

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Oh no! I would also be very distressed by that. And it's especially bad with the dog people who think that everyone loves their dog.

She works with young children. Why would it be a good idea to have a dog around if there's also young children who might easily be distracted and have to focus?

"all the dog wanted to do was love"

I hate it when dog owners use that as an excuse. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. A girl in my high school had a phobia of dogs. When we got a new headmistresses it pretty much took our whole class in solidarity to get her to accept that her dog at work was not okay.

her dog at work

What the fuck. If the dog can't bear to be alone, don't get the dog.

I once worked with a therapist who occasionally brought her little dog in. The dog ignored me, but it was tremendously distracting and stressful. I'm sure it works great for dog people! I am not dog people. I'm so sorry the doctor not only put you through that but tried to justify it—I hope this isn't someone you're seeing about mental health concerns, because addressing a phobia with "But the dog just wants to love you!" is very bad practice.

She focuses less on mental health and more on occupational therapy, for lack of a better term. Which - I can't see how it's good for the patients for for the dog.

Hannah, thank you for sharing this.

Your description of your reasons really resonated in a way that I could almost feel what you were saying about faces, and prey animals, and the different ways they attune to nuance.

As a therapist in training I will take this in to my being. In my thoughts about the possibility of someday opening a private practice I was considering having therapy animals involved in my practice. Animals I am considering are a standard poodle, a cat, and/or a rabbit. Your post reminds me that I need to have a way to A) assess a client's potential reaction to having any animal in a session before they ever encounter said animal and B) a place for the animal to go so that a client never has to see the animal at anytime during their appointment times and C) be clear and open that there are therapy animals around so that the client can make a choice about whether or not to see me at all even knowing that they won't likely be forced to confront an animal.

Thank you for sharing. You have helped me see and grow.

I've had some incidental and terrible encounters with a friend's standard poodle: it never stopped barking at me. I was, at one point, standing across the hallway from her apartment door, pressed against the wall and not looking at it or moving or reacting in any way, and it kept on barking at me. I don't know what I was or wasn't doing, but she had to haul the dog off into the back of the apartment before I could come in. Also, her spaniel kept nosing at me and trying to get close, even when I was just standing in the kitchen and not making any eye contact with it.

I've yet to meet a dog that respects boundaries or reacts to what I'm trying to put forth.

What would the cat, dog, or rabbit bring to your practice? I'm honestly curious what their benefits would be to your patients, because I've never worked with a therapy animal such as those.

You know, that's a really good question.

To begin, a good therapy animal is a highly trained animal, not just one who happens to be in a therapist's office. They are trained to nuance, to know when to approach and when not to. They are also trained how to approach. If the animal is unwilling to learn these commands then it would not make a good therapy animal. This is true of all therapy animals. It is something I'd need to explore with animals such as a bunny. I know I could train a cat. Additionally, there is training for the therapist who wants to use a therapy animal in their practice. Some of the training is pertains only to counseling issues such as how to know when use of an animal is appropriate and when not. Some of it is concurrent with the training of the animal so that both the therapist and the animal know what is expected of each other and how to behave. I wouldn't just go and find an animal somewhere and bring it, untrained, to my office. That's not a therapy animal, that's an office pet.

First, I have always been around cats, half predator, half prey instinct and so I see how they are very nuanced. All my current cats are former street animals and they are very attuned to the tensions and joys in the house and especially in me. They actually help me modulate frustration and stress because I need to mind their fears and care for their comfort. They also help me experience play and fun, something I am unskilled at and uncomfortable with.

So, back to your question, I think that a cat could potentially help me, as a therapist, see things in someone my human dullness may miss. Some people find a cat comforting to hold or have nearby even if they don't hold the cat. Also, the cat purr is supposed to be at a frequency that promotes healing. I couldn't provide it on the spot but I understand there is research to support this.

As to bunny, there is is the softness and the comfort to hold them, but again, not everyone is going to respond well to them. My dentist has a bunny warren at his office with a big plate glass window looking onto a courtyard full of bunnies. From time to time he'll bring one in and let us patients hold it if we want.

I am a long way off from running my own practice so there are a lot of questions and realities to explore. Your experience and your question are on the list.

I can't explain the poodle's reaction to, or the barking at you either. There would not be a worse feeling than feeling like one must freeze to keep oneself safe, I think. The other dog was trying, in its doggy, nose driven way, to learn who your were through your scent, as you may know. That doesn't absolve the owner of either dog from their responsibility to have taught their animal how to get along politely in society and not be a PIA. Most people train their dogs badly, if at all. I don't like the nature of the dog to be all up in your space and ignoring boundaries either. Because I like animals, I have learned with dogs to gain the courage to own my boundaries with them and gain their respect. It didn't come easily. But it was easier than the same with humans, FWIW.

As an addendum, found some of the information I have looked at from time to time as I consider this as a possible path.

(Please forgive me for no longer knowing how to code an html link.)

Links Below:

This is from the American Counseling Association, the professional body that develops ethics and protocols for people who are licensed as mental health counselors. I imagine the American Psychological Association may have their own such document.

https://www.animalassistedtherapyprograms.org/images/ACA_animal-assisted-therapy-competencies-june-2016_1.pdf

This is an organization in Colorado that offers Animal Assisted Therapy to clients. It also trains therapists to provide animal assisted therapy. One of the benefits that cats provide is they are very clear about their tolerance (or lack thereof) to anger, aggression, yelling, and similar behaviors and can help clients learn to modulate their behaviors in ways they may not learn through human interaction.

https://www.animalassistedtherapyprograms.org/

I have to get this out of my head.

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as an afterthought...