• Question: Do you think horses or other animals can be therapeutic?

    Asked by luvponies1404 to Ollie, Georgia, Andy, Amy, Alex on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think for some illnesses they can. I think its always comforting to have a nice animal around that you can just sit and stroke. I know that my dogs always seem to know when youre felling sad and they always manage to cheer me up

    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think there are some places – some carehomes for the elderly and some day-centres for people with Alzheimers – that already have a pets for therapy scheme. They bring in really well trained pets for people to spend some time with to cheer them up. Putting people in a positive frame of mind is a big part of helping them to be healthy! 🙂

      It’s a shame that we can’t really do things like this for people in hospital though – hospitals need to be kept so clean and free of germs that we can’t really let animals in.

    • Photo: Alex Munro

      Alex Munro answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Absolutely! I read about some research ages ago that suggested that ppl who owned dogs were likely to be less stressed/suffer from stress-related conditions.

      Also, I’ve heard that when children are brought up in a home with animals, they are less likely to suffer from allergies… I’m not sure whether this is true, although it makes sense to me! When my daughter was little, we had 3 dogs, a cat & a hamster!!

      Animals can be wonderful companions – I would certainly recommend them, although they are a serious undertaking too…they need lots of looking after

    • Photo: Amy Reeve

      Amy Reeve answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think dogs in particular are very good. My dogs totally pick up if you are sad or feeling ill and they give you attention. I think for sick people the best therapy is just having something to make them smile and playing with a pet always does that. If they have been in hospital for a while they might be missing their own pets. i think using animals for therapy is a fab idea 😀

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Yes, I think they can be in some circumstances, particularly for mental illnesses.

      Check out these guys:
      http://www.equineassistedtherapy.org.uk/
      http://www.wayofthehorse.org/Articles/horse-therapy.html

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Yes, I think they can be useful in some circumstances, particularly for mental illnesses.

      Check out these guys:
      http://www.equineassistedtherapy.org.uk/
      http://www.wayofthehorse.org/Articles/horse-therapy.html

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