Melissa Winkle: Thank you so much for getting up and joining us this morning. This is my second course on animal assisted interventions with OccupationalTherapy.com. Here is the first one if you would like to check it out. I want to dedicate this mini workshop to Gunner in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Gunner.
Gunner unfortunately passed before his time with a rare form of cancer, but he definitely taught me that life is short and that I should keep my goals in sight and always have my rewards nearby. This is me and my entourage in Figure 2.
Figure 2. My entourage.
It is every exciting that I have the opportunity to have my own practice and be able to offer animal assisted interventions as well as assistance dogs as an assistive technology option. I hope that everybody can someday have a career that they love as much as I do. This is not just a 9 to 5 job for me. It can be really tricky to separate your love for your dogs from your measurable professional goals. While there is no way to separate them 100%, we have to make sure that we are being ethical with our treatment both to humans and hounds.
Taxonomy
The taxonomy is from Animal Assisted Intervention International. There are some other groups that also use this terminology internationally so I am very comfortable using it. We are going to talk about these four types of animal assisted interventions as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Types of Animal Assisted Intervention.
First, we will talk about animal assisted activities, then animal assisted education, animal assisted therapy, and lastly, animal support.
Common Ground in Professional Practice
It may not seem on the surface that we have a whole lot in common. These overlapping circles in Figure 4 really show that there are different professionals and paraprofessionals to support you with some commonalities, but distinct practices.
Figure 4. Common ground in professional practice.
If you're a dog trainer, you need to make sure that your dogs are well prepared for this kind of a job. It is not all sunshine and puppies, just petting dogs and giving them treats all day long. We have to really make sure that our animals are happy, our job is being done, and doing it in a manner that we are comfortable with because it does fulfill our soul.
