What is the Human-Animal Bond? a mutually beneficial and dynamic - - PDF document

9/14/2017 1 Nancy R. Gee, PhD

• Professor of Psychology

State University of New York, Fredonia

• HAI Research Manager

WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition

• Human Animal Bond Advisory Board Member

Pet Partners

What is the Human-Animal Bond?

…a mutually beneficial and dynamic relationship between people and

• ther animals that is influenced by behaviors that are essential to the

health and well-being of both

– Definition of the Human-Companion Animal Bond (HCAB) taken from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) 2006

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An enduring and important relationship…

10,000 years ago

• 7.5 M cats
• 8.5 M dogs

UK

• 60+ M cats
• 66+ M dogs

EU

• 2/3 of all homes

include a pet

US

• 7 M cats
• 6.4 M dogs

CA

Pompeii Mosaic 79 AD

General Health Benefits

• Over the past 40 years many studies have reported health

benefits from pet ownership

• Following acquisition of a pet, owners reported:
• Fewer minor health complaints (e.g. headaches)
• Improvements in self-reported psychological well being
• Benefits were sustained over time for dog owners
• Dog owners increased recreational walking
• Pet owners compared to non-pet owners:
• Have lower blood pressure, plasma triglycerides and cholesterol
• Are more likely to be alive one year after a heart-attack (dog owners)

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Children who have pets…

• Sick days from

school

• Allergies &

asthma

• Obese 5 & 6

year olds

• Self esteem
• Empathy
• Popularity with

classmates

• Involvement in

hobbies, clubs, & chores Evidence base is weak to mixed:

• Correlational
• Lack of control conditions
• Poorly designed studies/surveys
• Hard to assign pet ownership

But…

My research with preschoolers…

• Empirical designs
• Random
• Assignment to conditions
• Presentation of stimuli
• Counterbalancing
• Repeated measures
• Reduces error variance
• Multiple data points per subject
• Small sample sizes
• Medium to large effect sizes

Task Dog Condition relative to No Dog or Stuffed Dog Execution of Motor-skills Faster with no loss of accuracy Following Instructions Motor-skills Higher Adherence Instructions Object Recognition Exp 1 Fewer prompts needed Object Recognition Exp 2 Fewer prompts needed Memory Obect Recognition Faster and more accurate Categorization Match-to-Sample Fewer irrelevant choices Match-to-Category Larger Animation Effect Language Production Story Telling Greater word production

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Ongoing studies investigating the impact of animals in education…

• Examines the impact of pet ownership on education

related variables in children

• Examines the impact of interacting with dogs on

empathy, self-esteem, stress & anxiety, and cognitive & language variables in children

• Examines the impact of dogs on academic stress

exposure and resulting academic performance of university students

Why Study Animals in Education?

• Practice is widespread:
• Survey of 1,400 teachers in

accredited programs

• 67% animals in classroom

Uttley (2013)

• “State of the art”
• Provides a way to help

students deepen their knowledge, pique their interests, and serve as a motivational influence Hummel &

Randler (2012)

• Animal welfare concerns

need to be addressed

• Gap in the literature:
• Very little work on efficacy of

such practices

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Connection to Theories of Early Childhood Education

• Dewey: espoused the importance of allowing children’s

interests to form the basis of curriculum planning

• Montesorri: children take and learn responsibility by

direct interaction with their environment

• Erikson: examined the impact of culture and society on

development

• Piaget: children construct their own knowledge by

interacting with their environment

• Vygotsky: children learn by doing and talking about

their experiences (language production) and develop aspects of cognition (executive function) as part of these experiences

Mooney (2013)

Published February 2017

• Current state of the research
• Resource for:
• Educators
• Researchers
• Volunteers
• Recommendations for:
• Research Design
• Best Practice
• Animal Welfare
• Discussion of legal issues

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What do we know about reading to dogs programs? Literature Searched

• PubMed (1946-present)
• Science Direct (1946-present)
• American Doctoral Dissertations (1933-1955)
• Canadian Reference Centre (1901-present
• Education Source (1900- present)
• ERIC (1966-present)
• Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition (1952-present)
• Masterfile Premier (1921-present)
• PsychArticles (1894-present)
• PsychInfo (1987-present)
• Psychology & Behavioural Sciences Collection (1930-present)
• Social Sciences Full Text (1972-present)
• Google Scholar (1946-present)

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Level 5

• Expert opinion without critical appraisal, or based on physiology, bench research.

Level 4

• Case series, and poor quality cohort and case control studies

Level 3

• b – Individual case-control study
• a – systematic review of case-control studies

Level 2

• c – outcomes research, ecological studies
• b – individual cohort studies, including low quality RCTs
• a – systematic review of cohort studies

Level 1

• c – all or none case series
• b – individual RCTs with narrow confidence interval
• a – systematic review of RCTs

Strength of Evidence OCEBM – Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine Level 5

• Expert opinion without critical appraisal, or based on physiology, bench research.
• 27 studies - most were ad hoc reports as evidenced by teachers or dog

handlers.

Level 4

• Case series, and poor quality cohort and case control studies
• 13 studies - most followed the progress of a small group of children, but did not

use standardized measures or did not include a control group.

Level 2c

• Outcomes research
• 7 studies – most used a standard or objective approach to measure effects, but

did not report effect sizes and/or inferential statistics

Level 2b

• Individual cohort studies, including low quality randomized control trials.
• 1 study – used random assignment to conditions and a standardized measure of

reading ability

Strength of Evidence 48 studies met the search criteria

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Summary

• 48 studies met search criteria – all reported positive

effects of children reading to dogs

• In particular – studies reported behavioral

improvements that may improve the environment in which reading is practiced.

• Quality of evidence is low
• Majority of studies categorized as OCEBM level

5 (lowest level)

• Most based on ad hoc reports – not subject to

peer review, small sample sizes and failed to use blind scoring or consider long term effects.

Study with best OCEBM rating

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Students - identified as poor readers

• 102 - 3rd graders – age 7-13 (M = 8.2)
• 27 – read to a dog (volunteer present)
• 24 – read to an adult
• 26 – read to a teddy bear (adult present)
• 10 week program (20 min per week)
• 9 dogs: Golden Retriever (4), Boxer, King Charles

Cavalier, Jack Russell cross, Maltese & Weimaraner

• Data were collected:
• Before program
• Upon program completion
• 8-week follow up
• Standardized measure:
• Neale Analysis of Reading Ability

Results

• Groups were not significantly different before the

start of program.

• The 10-week program did result in significant

differences:

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Reading Accuracy Results

6.9 7 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8

Group Differences

Dog Adult Teddy Bear

Reading Accuracy Interaction

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Reading Rate Interaction

Reading Comprehension

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Reading Comprehension Over Time

Conclusions from the study?

• Reading to dogs was beneficial for reading

rate, accuracy and comprehension.

• BUT
• Applies to poor readers in 3rd grade.
• Seems to be more effective for boys in

that group than girls.

• Children in the dog group received

more free books than kids in the other condition – that may have provided additional motivation beyond the presence of the dog.

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Conclusions from the literature review

• Dogs may improve wider learning environment for children
• Increasing positive attitudes (evidence by smiling and laughing) during

reading practice

• Improvement in attitude/motivation/engagement
• Improve confidence (self-esteem and self-concept)
• Provide social support and companionship
• Decreasing displays of problematic behaviors
• Decreasing anxiety (calming effect)

How does this work?

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Cautions…

• Quality of most of the evidence in this area is low (level 5).
• Pets are not a panacea.
• More research is needed!
• Please volunteer for these research projects!
• Despite criticisms of existing research we do know some

things…

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Reading to dogs

Has the potential to bring significant improvements to children’s reading abilities – must be investigated further.

Programs involving volunteers are approximately 74% less expensive.

Considering the global cost of illiteracy (est $1.2 trillion in 2015) Reading to dogs programs represent a unique, cost effective strategy that can be broadly implemented.

Frequently asked Questions:

• How do I get involved in research on this topic?
• Contact an HAI researcher!
• Google it? Is anyone in your area doing research on this topic?
• Answer the call – when a request is made for a Pet Partners team – do

what you do best!

• I’m not aware of an existing list of researchers working on the topic,

and if there were it would need to be updated frequently.

• Researchers are aware of Pet Partners and frequently seek our volunteers for

their projects via direct requests.

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• Does the animal handler need to have expertise in reading

instruction?

• No, it appears that the benefit comes from the practice and motivation

associated with the experience, which is separate from the formal instruction students receive in the classroom.

• Formal instruction is critical, but let’s leave that to classroom teachers.
• It’s possible that the non-judgmental nature of these settings (not

evaluating or correcting mistakes) is one of the key elements of success.

• How does the dogs behavior impact the success of the

program?

• Assuming the dog’s behavior is meeting Pet Partners standards.
• This is likely to be situation/individual specific.
• Some children want the dog to appear to listen and other kids don’t mind if the

dog sleeps.

• Whether it makes a difference in terms of reading outcomes is

currently unknown.

• There are things you can train your dog to do:
• I trained my dog to watch the book – treat when page is turned.
• Problem – dog may drool.

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How can I help get a Read with Me program started, where it does not already exist?

• STEP 1 -

Step 2 – Have the Discussion

Approach a school/library teacher/administrator, but go prepared!

Approach

Bring a copy of the lit review paper and/or the book I mentioned along with your Pet Partners guidelines.

• Don’t try to sell it – provide information
• Be realistic – don’t over-state what you can deliver

Bring

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Step 3 – Do your due-diligence

• Check that you have approval to begin visits and make sure

that this approval has been given by the appropriate source.

• If your contact is a teacher make sure that the school principal is also
• nboard.
• Be sure that you have a contact person who will serve as your

visit supervisor, and that person has been authorized to perform that duty.

• Are parents in the loop?
• Work with your supervisor to prepare a note to send home to parents

to describe the upcoming interactions. Include a picture of your dog and describe some essentials in the note (setting, reason for visits, how children can opt out) including some basic suggestions for preparing children for the upcoming visits.

• Consider developing a parental consent form and respect that some

parents will say “no” – that’s okay, this isn’t a requirement

If dogs could read…

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YAYABA

• You Are Your Animal’s Best Advocate
• Please read the Pet Partners “Read

with Me” manual very carefully!

• Know the signs of stress
• Know your animal & watch them

carefully!

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Children are not good at recognizing dog signals!

Two final thoughts…

• Listen to your “gut”
• When you are starting to feel a

little uncomfortable about the situation – find a way to extricate yourself and your animal.

• Pay attention to your animal after a

visit

• Are there any lingering stress

signs? (e.g., diarrhea)

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THANK YOU Any questions?