Doggy Therapy

Last weekend, I had a chat with my sister about how pets can be very therapeutic for the elderly and the special group. I didn’t think much about it, till I had a session with ZQ two days ago. I decided to invite him, together with his mum and sister, for a doggy play session.

Let me introduce the two main characters here.

ZQ is a 9-year-old boy with autism. He’s totally non-verbal. I have been seeing him for more than a year now, and we are using PECS for his communcation. PECS has done a lot of wonders for him. ZQ is one child who can use PECS almost anywhere and with anyone. His parents are very happy, because at least, they can know what he wants, and he can tell them what he wants.

Happy is a 5-month-old toy poodle. Some of you may know of her existence, most of you don’t. She actually belongs to  my housemate, but I would like to take half ownership of the dog as well. She’s very energetic, smart (too smart), naughty, friendly likes to bite bite and lick, attention-seeking (too much), adorable and fluffy. Happy pounces on the sofa when we sit down. She follows a.k.a. runs wherever we go.

And so ZQ’s entourage came to my house at 11.30am on one fine Saturday morning. I should mention that, usually, for pet therapy, people use dogs that are calm. Happy, by nature, is not calm at all. I had to hold her still and keep her calm for the initial first 15 minutes. After that, when I let her loose, I was very very surprised at her reaction towards ZQ.

Happy was actually very calm and constantly gauging ZQ’s reaction towards her. She was not her usual bouncy self. And ZQ actually engaged Happy to play. They were both very curious about each other. At the end of the video, ZQ came over to me to see what I was recording.

A lot of times, ZQ just stood at the window, or the glass door to look at the view. And Happy would stand about 1 metre away and watch him. When ZQ moved, Happy would follow at a distance. With the owners, Happy would be so excited that we would often trip over her. What a vast difference in Happy’s treatment  towards us and ZQ

I think Happy is as good to ZQ as ZQ is to Happy. I will be looking forward to inviting ZQ to my house more often for more doggy play.

~ by enniey on September 27, 2009.