Animal therapy boosts kids' health and hope: SouthFlorida.com

Throughout South Florida and around the world, various forms of animal therapy are used as a means to help children overcome physical, emotional and learning challenges.

Dolphins, horses, dogs, cats and even a few farm animals pitch in at programs from Loxahatchee to the Keys to make life a little easier and more enjoyable for kids with major illnesses, special needs, or even stage fright.

Studies of animal therapy have shown repeatedly that exposure to animals helps improve morale and communication, bolster self-esteem, calm anxiety - even reduce blood pressure and heart rate.

Specific animal therapies can augment traditional physical, occupational or even speech therapy. Animals used in therapy help children, often with severe challenges, to feel better about themselves.

The choice of an appropriate animal-therapy program is largely dependent on individual likes and dislikes, as well as therapeutic needs. Doctors and therapists who are already working with a child may be able to suggest animal therapy to assist in the ongoing therapy. Issues such as allergies and fears, as well as costs, all play a part in decision-making.

A whole new outlook

Megan Baldwin, 15, of Davie was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a form of bone cancer that affects about 500 children a year, on Christmas Day 1999. After her legs went numb from a previously undiagnosed tumor on her back, she underwent emergency surgery that night. But the tumor reappeared - larger - one month later, precipitating a round of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The illness and treatment left her bald for a year-and-a-half and unable to partake in traditional sports.

"You can imagine what that does to a young girl," says Megan's mom, JoAnn Rennhack. So it was a belated Christmas gift of sorts when Gilda's Club, South Florida's Noogieland program for kids with cancer, took Megan and 23 other children and teens to Island Dolphin Care in Key Largo in July 2002 to swim with the dolphins.

Island Dolphin Care then gave Megan another gift, offering her a scholarship to the facility's weeklong summer camp program. Megan and a handful of other kids took turns swimming with a family of three dolphins, culminating in a group swim at the end of the week.

"She swam with the dolphins every day," Rennhack said. "The dolphins can sense these kids. She was sitting in the water and this one dolphin kept coming up to her and kissing her."
The experience left a lasting impression on Megan and the way she views herself, her illness and related challenges. "She felt better about herself," her mom said. "It changed her. Her confidence was better, which led to her having a whole different outlook. It gave her back some self-esteem. She accomplished something, and her disease didn't get in the way."

Rennhack was also inspired by watching the other participants in Megan's group. "There was another little girl who was autistic, and she was speaking the dolphin's name by the end of the week," she said.

Megan, an animal lover with a special interest in marine biology, said her interaction with the dolphins was "just the coolest thing ever - beyond cool."

As for her continuing struggle with Ewing's sarcoma, the teen is determined to swim with the currents. "We deal with it and we get the best out of it," she says.

A pioneering approach

The use of animals to assist in therapy may go back centuries. There is evidence that horses were used for therapeutic riding in ancient Greek literature. But animal therapy as a practice is a relatively new phenomenon.

Horses have been used continuously this century in physical therapy, especially for people who were paralyzed by injury or polio. But it wasn't until the 1990s that standards were set for a clinical practice in horseback riding therapy, or hippotherapy.

Similarly, the use of pets - dogs, mostly, but also a few cats - in therapy for psychiatric and nursing home patients goes back only to the 1960s. Today, pets are used to ease hospital patients' anxiety, help children who are anxious about learning to read, and for a number of other calming and esteem-building therapies for learning disabled, autistic, ill and physically disabled children and adults.

Dolphin therapy was pioneered in South Florida in the 1970s. The approach, using a romp with dolphins as a motivation to reinforce desired behavior, was developed by clinical psychologist Dave Nathanson working with a group of children with Down syndrome at the now-closed Ocean World in Fort Lauderdale. The program was honed and tested at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key in the 1980s. Today, Dolphin Human Therapy is based at Dolphins Plus in Key Largo, but offered at many parks and lagoons around the world where captive dolphins live.

Parents and extended families are often involved in the two-week program at Dolphins Plus, which serves up to 400 families a year with mildly to profoundly disabled children. Parents are encouraged to undergo training in order to more fully participate their children's progress. Nathanson's technique matches the dolphin-child interplay with the child's abilities and the behavior that therapists are working on with the child, says spokesperson Christina Collins. Targeted areas include fine and gross motor skills, speech and language, social interaction, eye contact and confidence.

A child working to straighten his leg might be rewarded with a "foot push," a ride around the lagoon, in which a dolphin pushes the child along as he reclines with a floatation device or holds onto a surfboard, Collins says. "It's a traditional therapy in a nontraditional setting," she says. "We end up seeing amazing things the kids aren't motivated to do in a traditional classroom. It helps jump-start them to a different level."

Collins says that the lagoon environment itself can be a strong motivator. "They're outside with the sun shining on a floating platform with a dolphin looking at them and a therapist," she says. "It's motivating and confidence-building. It's realizing they can do something, swimming with an 8-foot-long dolphin." The dolphins themselves can provide encouragement by their temperament and apparent ability to sense the needs of their human charges.

"What we have seen is an amazing sensitivity of dolphins to people with special needs," says Mary Stella of the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key. The center's Dolphin Child Department, working with health-care facilities and therapists, helps children with speech, motor and focusing skills, as well as stress reduction.

Horses are therapists, too

Horses, too, seem to have an affinity for and a healing affect on kids, say those involved in equine therapy programs. Horses for the Handicapped in Coconut Creek, which offers weekly, one-hour programs over a 10-week period, serves mostly children who use wheelchairs and walkers, says executive director Ray Wolowicz. "The heat from the animals helps them," he says. "And the movement of the horse has a therapeutic value."

Using study plans and working with therapists, instructors challenge students to achieve specific goals set with the children's doctors. Therapeutic riding, or hippotherapy, is an advanced physical therapy, with its own certification board, the American Hippotherapy Board, and specific licensing for a hippotherapy clinical specialist. But, Wolowicz says, one does not need a medical degree to appreciate the outcome.

"The best thing they accomplish is that they have a big smile on their faces. For the first time, they are looking down at everyone. In a wheelchair, they are always looking up. They are in control of a 1,500 pound-plus horse and they feel like they're in charge."

In addition to exercising on the horses, children are encouraged to interact with them. Wolowicz says that some kids, who are unable to speak when they begin the program, start talking to the horses after being asked to perform tasks, such as instructing the animals to move on.

The popularity of equine therapy is growing. Miami's Children's Clinic, which provides dolphin therapy through Nathanson's Dolphin Human Therapy program in the Keys, plans to open a hippotherapy facility in January on the grounds of Burger King's former headquarters near Biscayne Bay, says therapist Heather Anthony.

"Animals can stimulate the muscular skeletal system," Anthony says. "The up-and-down bouncing motion helps them to right themselves. Animals can provide ... deep pressure to the spinal column, which wakes up the muscles."

How far can the kids themselves progress? For some, all the way to the Special Olympics: The Vinceremos Therapeutic Riding Center in Loxahatchee, where equine-assisted therapy has been available for those with emotional and physical disabilities since 1981, is the training center for Special Olympics medalists.

Vinceremos, which is Latin for "to overcome," also works with at-risk teens and elderly stroke victims, in addition to children as young as 2 years old.

A quieter therapy

Nearby, Good Earth Farm, on 15 acres in Loxahatchee, is interested in saving animals while helping kids, says Nancy Fried-Tobin, who has 34 years of experience in physical education and as an equestrian teacher. Often, the animals at Good Earth Farm have been saved from impending doom. Fried-Tobin, a master of Reiki, an Eastern form of healing using the body's energy, says those spared animals can in turn lend a hoof or a paw to help a child with autism or mild-to-severe learning disabilities

Among the animals in the Good Earth stable are a 51-year-old pony and horses in their 20s and 30s. Fried-Tobin says they are especially gentle with the children they work with - and the kids typically respond in kind.

"The kids might come in screaming at first," she says of the farm's pony rides for children with autism or other emotional problems. "But they get on a pony and all of a sudden, they get very quiet. They just bond. It's an innate, spiritual thing."

Like many other programs, animal-assisted therapy at Good Earth Farm incorporates animal care into its curriculum as a way to teach children how to be responsible for animals and to fine-tune their capacity for interaction physically and emotionally.

"Animals love kids and kids love animals," Fried-Tobin says. "So what do I do? I create programs and workshops with special needs kids and others."

Pet therapy for many needs

Children who suffer less severe disabilities or anxieties can also benefit from working with animals in a challenging, but nonthreatening, environment. The Humane Society of Broward County's Wags and Tales Reading Program offers children ages 5-12 who are reluctant to read or who have literacy deficiencies the chance to read to a pet therapy dog at one of nine libraries in Broward County. The dog, of course, doesn't care whether the child misses a word. But the child's esteem and ability to read grows.

"It breaks down the barriers of insecurity," says Marni Bellavia, the humane society's education partnership coordinator.

The dogs are not the only participants who are attuned to the needs of their charges. The pet owners who volunteer with their dogs to participate in the 2-year-old program "are highly sensitive to every situation," Bellavia says. Bellavia herself started as a volunteer. She now oversees the pet-assisted therapy program, working with 115 volunteers and about 80 facilities, including schools, children's hospitals and nursing homes, primarily in Broward, but also in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Most of the children served are in hospitals; many are wheelchair-bound with significant disabilities. The way the children interact with the pets for therapeutic purposes is determined by their rehabilitative program.

"A child can be aggressive, and we use animals to teach them to be calmer," she says. "We show them the proper way to stroke a pet, which can reduce blood pressure and stress. If the child's problem is focusing, we have them make eye contact as the dogs move around the room." In the case of a blind child, "it's all about touch and sense of smell, so we have a dog there to touch," she said.

A paraplegic child can benefit from socializing therapy, by meeting a trained dog and talking about the animal. Dexterity can be enhanced by filling the dog's water bowl. A child hospitalized with a broken leg might benefit from walking a dog on a leash, while a child who has difficulty grasping can work on holding a dog's brush or leash.

Whatever a child's challenges are, Bellavia says, with 140 dogs, two cats and their trained and certified owner-volunteers, she is likely to have a team that can help - although, like many such programs, more volunteers are always welcome. "We're always looking for volunteers and dogs," she says. "We're not even close to having enough." And while her programs work primarily with dogs, Bellavia points out that pet therapy can also include more exotic animals, such as llamas and birds.

"Pet therapy," she said, "is a huge world." For kids like Megan Baldwin, it is one that can make a world of difference.

Beverly Barna is a freelance writer and mother. She lives in Lake Worth.