Fort Leavenworth Human Animal Bond member Shelby Burnett, joined by her 4-year-old Dutch retriever, Lilly, addressed the HAB membership earlier this year emphasizing the impact HAB volunteers have through their work with their pet partners and the non-profit service organization.
Burnett, social worker at Tonganoxie (Kansas) Elementary School, delivered a presentation on the merits of dog therapy, stressing social, emotional and academic benefits by including highlights from her experiences with Lilly, who accompanies her to work, during the HAB monthly membership meeting March 7, 2024, at the First United Methodist Church in Leavenworth. Educational programs are often offered at the monthly meetings.
As posted at www.ftleavenworthhab.com, HAB is “staffed by area volunteers and their therapy pets dedicated to providing animal-assisted activities and promoting the human-animal bond in the Leavenworth and Lansing, Kansas, area. It consists of ‘teams’ that go on scheduled visits to local hospitals, schools, correctional facilities, various types of health care, veterans’ services and convalescent centers.”
Burnett said research has reinforced that pet therapy offers a wide range of benefits.
“Research shows that visits with therapy pets encourage reminiscence, and social interaction and may result in stress relief and incidental physiotherapy,” she said. “Medical studies suggest that blood pressure may be lowered and hospital stays shortened when patients have access to pets. Often, a visit with a pet can be the high point in the day of a shut-in, bringing happiness and a sense of calm and well-being.”
Individualized experience
Interacting with a dog is in individualized experience, Burnett said. She offered examples of what she has witnessed in her work as a social worker and as a volunteer with HAB.
“One of our kiddos in my building at Tonganoxie Elementary School is deathly scared of big dogs — we knew this, so (for the HAB read-to-a-dog visit) we paired her with Sadie (a small shih tzu), and she fell in love,” Burnett said. “By the end of the visit, she was able to come up and pet Rambo (a very large Labrador retriever) and talk with him, and now she is no longer scared of big dogs…
“So, when we are looking at therapy dog research — social, emotional and academic — there are those benefits, but it is at an individualized experience and benefit to a person.”
Social benefits
Burnett said she has seen the social benefits of pet therapy be quite effective.
“With what our therapy dogs do, they increase social interactions among peers, students, teachers. They give kids something to look forward to if we have scheduled visits with them. They can help increase skills of waiting, taking turns, listening,” Burnett said. “These are called social skills, or soft skills, that our students need to have. A lot of times they are taught differently in family systems along as with the school system.”
Burnett said pet therapy can help create cohesiveness among students of different physical and mental abilities.
“Within our building, we house the center-based resource classroom. Those are our students who have varying abilities, so there are students that are in wheelchairs or have walkers or they have different cognitive levels. When we’re in a classroom together, none of that matters. It matters that they are with the dogs, that they are with each other, and that they are interacting.”
Emotional benefits
Burnett said therapy dogs offer comfort and safety.
“If my girl hadn’t had exposure to Rambo, which we know he is our big boy in here, she wouldn’t have had that opportunity to get over that fear and work through that, so there is that benefit for her.”
She said therapy dogs help increase students’ ability to control their emotions and behaviors.
“Every morning I transition a kindergartner who has autism into his classroom, and we start out with a quiet start. (Lilly) hides in the tent in the classroom, and when the kids come in, I hold up a green card and that lets them know that Lilly is in the room, and they need to come in calm — green is their signal to have a calm body,” Burnett explained.
She said that classroom’s teacher has noticed a shift in the morning routine because of that “calm start.”
“I can literally just drop the leash and (Lilly) can walk around and visit with the kids, and everything is fine. There is that benefit of being able to control their emotions, just in a different way besides you and I sitting there teaching them ‘Hey, let’s take a deep breath’ — no, let’s actually apply this to what we are doing in the classroom.”
Decreased stress levels
Burnett said the stress hormone cortisol decreases when a dog is present, while having an increase in dopamine, which supports feelings of love and motivation; serotonin, which helps maintain calmness; and oxytocin, which enables connection.
“Our stress levels decrease when we are around dogs, or even as (HAB member) Brenda was telling me earlier, just watching dogs on TV can decrease your stress levels, because it helps your body relax, produces serotonin, dopamine, and decreases that stress level.”
Academic benefit
Pet therapy has academic benefits as well, Burnett said.
“This is a huge one for schools, because some of our visits are in the school setting, so that is the biggest thing when we are talking about bringing therapy dogs in: ‘What benefits does it have for our students?’ Well, it benefits their social, their emotion and their academics,” she said.
“Children pay more attention to their teachers when therapy dogs are present, and then even afterwards. That connects back to the lower cortisol levels, their bodies are not in that fight-flight-or-freeze mode, and it makes it easier for them to learn.”
Burnett said that fight-flight-or-freeze mode kicks in when someone becomes upset or senses danger.
“When that (fight-flight-or-freeze) part of your brain is turned on, the thinking part of your brain is turned off, because you are focused on survival. When that front part of our brain is turned off, we’re not learning, we are not understanding how to use coping skills, we’re not using deep breathing. So, after dogs leave, that fear part of the kids’ brain about the math test that’s coming up, or the spelling test, or the state assessments that are coming up, that’s gone, and so they have a greater ability to stop, listen, think, process through what the teacher is trying to teach them.”
Reading fluency
Burnett said dog therapy can increase the executive function in students, increasing their listening, focus and connection, as well has help improve their reading.
“Having a non-judgmental partner there with you — they’re not going to correct you because you said ‘that’ instead of ‘then’ — they’re not going to focus on that, they are going to focus on you, because you are talking to them and you’re making that eye connection with them.”
HAB member Brenda Johnson, owner of the aforementioned big Labrador retriever, Rambo, said she has witnessed the connection students are making with the dogs.
“When we walking through the (Leavenworth County) Veterans Day Parade, there were multiple families along the parade route that were yelling ‘There’s Rambo! We were reading to him!’ Oh my gosh, my heart was like so many sizes larger, and my teenage son (Wesley, who is also a HAB member) was with me, so he got to feel that, too,” Johnson told Burnett. “That right there is proof enough to me, you can measure it or whatever, but the fact that the kids along the parade route were yelling that they got to read to the dog, … I was really hooked after that.”
Burnett agreed that the connection is really impactful.
“When you are calm, you make more concrete memories. You can be excited, and you’re going to remember that feeling, but you might not remember the details of what was going on around you, but when you are calm, you are having that larger impact, and that’s what their environment (with the dogs) offers.”
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