French handlers’ perspectives on Animal-Assisted Interventions

Mignot, Alice; Luca, Karelle De; Leboucher, Gérard; Servais, Véronique

doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2021.101356

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

References 58 publications

(83 reference statements)

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“…111 French handlers in AAI completed the entire questionnaire. The complete characteristics of our sample are presented in our precedent articles [ 26 , 48 ]. Regarding handers, our sample was composed of 94.59% ( n = 105) female and 5.41% male ( n = 6).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, handlers were mostly trained in AAI whereas it is not mandatory in France [ 23 , 26 , 70 ]. It is important to note that they were trained in different structures, which can impact their representations and management of their therapy dog welfare [ 48 ]. Only 37.84% of them undertaken some initial training within the animal field, which was represented by various professions (i.e., veterinarian and breeder).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A five-section questionnaire was constructed based on a literature review [ 3 , 23 , 36 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ] and questioning raised during informal interviews and internship. As mentioned before, for this article, we focused our attention on 10 items ( Table 1 ; complete questionnaire in Mignot [ 48 ]).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the behavioral observation side, according to the majority of studies, little or no stress behavior is observed in the dogs studied [ 11 , 29 , 39 , 41 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. This diversity of results could be linked to the diverse spectrum of types of AAIs including a heterogeneity in settings, as well as in the different characteristics of handlers and dogs [ 10 , 15 , 26 , 48 ]. Note also that program monitoring and ethical standards related to research effectively limit risks to dog welfare and generalization of results due to lack of fidelity to actual practice [ 41 , 49 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Handlers’ Representations on Therapy Dogs’ Welfare

Mignot

Luca

Servais

et al. 2022

Animals

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While research on the benefits of animal-assisted interventions is beginning to build a significant body of work, studies on the well-being of therapy dogs are still in their infancy. Since handlers are the people responsible for their therapy dog’s welfare, we interviewed 111 French handlers through an online questionnaire. Our results underlined that (i) therapy dogs’ welfare is multidimensional when physical and psychological welfare, a balance between work and dog life and the settings and interactions of sessions are all taken into consideration. (ii) The response of our handlers emphasized that considering therapy dog welfare is important for the quality and safety of AAI. (iii) Three categories of risks factors were highlighted: the spatio-temporal framework (planning and environment), the interactions with beneficiaries and the handler themselves. It is particularly important that handlers talk about the negative impact of interactions with beneficiaries since they are at the heart of AAI, however there are few studies focusing on interactions as a stressor for dogs in this practice. Moreover, since there is a potential for positive bias in the handlers’ representations, it is important that they be trained to identify and manage the stress in their dogs. Future research is particularly needed on the impact of interactions during sessions on therapy dog welfare.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%