Welfare in a shelter dog rehomed with Alzheimer patients

Abstract

This study evaluates whether a shelter dog could be rehomed successfully into a facility for people suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD). The goal was to assess the effect on animal welfare of this form of pet ownership and of individual sessions of animal assisted activity (AAA) with some pre-selected patients. After the enrollment of a suitable shelter dog, the dog was introduced gradually into the facility. Upon adoption, the dog's welfare was monitored during the first 6 months by integrating indirect assessment (18-item questionnaire) with direct observations of behavioral and clinical responses (31-item score system table), and with an assay of hormonal changes. Only descriptive statistics were done on the questionnaire data. The findings suggest a progressive positive integration into the new environment. The qualitative data using direct observations were analyzed with the Spearman Rank order correlation test. Some data showed significant variation during the period of observation, suggesting a gradual reduction of the dog's stress during AAA sessions. The hormonal trend, especially for cortisol measured in hair, seemed to correlate with the clinical and behavioral findings.

Introduction

In the past few years pet facilitated therapy (PFT), better known as animal assisted therapy (AAT) and animal assisted activity (AAA) has been used with several populations of human patients. Numerous studies report the positive effects on human health of the animal–human interaction as be it through pet ownership, or as guided and controlled sessions of PFT conducted either with pet visitation programs or with resident companion animals. These benefits could be summarized as facilitating interpersonal relationships (Hogarth-Scott et al., 1983, Corson and Corson, 1987), improving mobility and coordination (Ministero della Salute, 2003), decreasing stress, increasing the capacity for concentration, vocal clarity and language production and improving mood (Buttram et al., 2004). There is good evidence that the animal–human relationship may help people to mitigate loneliness and depression (Holcomb, 1992, Banks and Banks, 2005). Some studies have shown that the relationship with an animal may induce positive effects on sociability and cognition of elderly people or in hospitalized psychiatric patients (Corson and Corson, 1981, Corson and Corson, 1987). In most of these studies the aims were to assess the effect on human patients, but little effort has been made to evaluate the presence of stress in the animal to improve animal welfare through the modulation of the activity or the reduction of the duration of the session itself (Gori and La Spina, 2004, Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica 2005).

Dogs involved in this kind of activity are usually trained previously to cope with strange situations, to be steady under stressful situations, and to be reliable with some commands at least at the novice level of obedience, even under distracting conditions (Gori and La Spina, 2004, Delta Society, 2005, Morici and Trussardi, 2006).

This study evaluates whether a shelter dog could be rehomed successfully into a facility for people suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and, secondarily, if it was possible to involve the dog in AAA sessions with some selected human patients.

Our study was set in the framework of a wider project that has involved several groups under the coordination of the “Social Security and Health Service” of the Province of Bologna, Italy. The groups that were involved as operative team included the University of Bologna (Faculties of Veterinary Medicine, of Psychology, of Education and Formation's Science) and the AUSL (Local Health Service) of Bologna. This multidisciplinary team was necessary to select human patients suitable for individual AAA session, to prescribe the right individual program of AAA session to each patient, to select the dog that fit the requirements to be enrolled, to monitor animal health to reduce the risk for human health (zoonoses), and to collect data about the human participants (effect on patients and the nursing facility staff) and about the dog's welfare.

Our final goal was to assess the effect on animal welfare with this form of pet ownership and when carrying out individual sessions of AAA.