ABSTRACT
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
Samuel Butler, Notebooks
An animal assisted therapy (AAT) program that involves interaction with farm animals, exotic animals, and sometimes even wild animals is the Companionable Zoo program (Katcher & Wilkins, 2002). A sample list of animals found in one particular program includes chinchilla, canary, dove, gecko, miniature goat, guinea pig, hamster, hedgehog, miniature horse, iguana, parakeet, pot-bellied pig, and rabbit. Another program actually has a pasture of buffalo. There are currently no guidelines for the choice of animals for this type of program. However, it is recommended that typically only domestically bred animals should be used, and no wild animals should be involved unless a wildlife care expert or wildlife rehabilitator is on staff. The Companionable Zoo program is typically designed to provide therapeutic education for children who have attention deficit with hyperactivity or who have a conduct disorder. The children in the zoo program are held responsible for the care of the animals while learning about nature. The Companionable Zoo program “is an evolving product of therapeutic education that takes place at the junction between people, animals, and nature” (Katcher & Wilkins, 2002, p. 2). The program uses the care of animals and contact with nature to help children, and sometimes adults, learn the rules of society:
The Companionable Zoo is a moral therapy. The ways that animals are treated and the rules governing human-animal interactions are metaphors for how the children should be treated. Children learn about human morality by reflecting upon the moral principles inherent in the treatment of animals. Without an ethic of human-animal interaction, there is no therapy in the larger sense. In thinking through the animal care guidelines, the Zoo staff should see that they, as well as the actions that they imply, define the staff’s humanity and signal how the children in their care will be treated. (Katcher & Wilkins, 2002, pp. 102-103)
Some of the therapeutic and learning goals of a Companionable Zoo program include (Katcher & Wilkins, 2002):
Modulate arousal to the demands of the task.• Experience sustained attention and comfort in a learning environment.• Take responsibility for a meaningful task.• Master fear and build confidence.• Learn skills and build competence.• Train in self-directed and other-directed speech.• Receive social skill training.• Train for positive attributions and expectations.• Train in social perspective taking and empathic skills.• Increase engagement with reading and writing tasks.• Increase ability to work cooperatively at learning tasks.•
A V A R I E T Y O F A A T A P P L I C A T I O N S
The preferred design of a therapeutic zoo program is to provide natural habitat or pasture for a variety of animals. Gardens and fishponds are encouraged. Additional activities can include supervised trips to the woods or wilderness areas. Empirical studies of the therapeutic zoo intervention “suggest that children, especially children who find it difficult to learn in a regular school setting, are more responsive to learning tasks as well as less symptomatic when they are participating in the care of animals and engaged in nature study” (Katcher, 2000a, p. 174).
