When animals turn 'healers'

Dubai Nine-year-old Louna Legay struggles to communicate. Afflicted with a rare genetic disorder, she has been completely non-verbal since birth and cannot express herself clearly. But all that is fast changing thanks to Chubby, a Cocker Spaniel, who is ‘teaching’ her to talk.

Chubby is one of the therapy animals at Senses – a Sharjah-based animal therapy centre located in the Al Tamimi Stables – that are trained to improve speech and developmental delays in adults and children.

Besides Chubby, the centre which was set up in January has nine other therapy animals: Rua, a Labrador; Blondie, a pony; a cockatoo named Tony; Bianca, a goat; two horses called Joker and Iberica; and three rabbits. This is the first such centre in the UAE.

“They have been trained by an Indian-based non-government organisation (NGO), Animal Angels Foundation, whose founder Minal Kavishwar flew in specially to pick the animals with a therapeutic quality from the Al Tamimi Stables farm. Chubby and Rua, however came from her organisation in India,” says Aditi Sen, Founder and General Manager, Senses.

As XPRESS visits the centre, we see Chubby being readied for a home therapy session with Louna.

“Chubby has a very friendly personality. Even if you are not a dog friendly person, Chubby will befriend you as she is trained to initiate interaction with people,” says Aditi.

Therapeutic brush

As soon as we arrive at Louna’s villa in Springs, Emirates Living, she locks her attention on Chubby. This is Chubby’s 11th visit. As the session gets under way, Zahra Poonawalla, clinical therapist with Senses, sits Louna down beside Chubby and starts to teach her some basic day to day skills. “Louna does not like to brush her hair. But since she connects with Chubby, we are trying to teach her to brush the dog first so she can understand that she can brush her hair too,” says Zahra.

Louna then walks Chubby around the park near her house and she looks happy playing with a ball with the dog.

“Pets offer a very non-judgemental setting for children with learning disorders. If such a child holds or grabs a person, the latter may become uncomfortable. But therapeutic animals are trained to handle these children and will not be scared if they handle them roughly,” says Zahra.

Giving an insight into Louna’s condition, her mother Katrine says: “It is very difficult to make her talk. She needs to be motivated to speak and Chubby does that. During the last session, she did something that caught me by surprise. I took Chubby in my arms so Louna could do the same. But instead of hugging the dog, she hugged me. That was a very special moment for me,” said Katrine.

Louna, who goes to the Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre, has already completed 10 sessions of animal assisted therapy with Senses. “She has responded very well,” says Zahra. “Previously Louna was completely non-verbal, but now she has started speaking a few words. For example, earlier whenever she wanted Chubby to come near her, she would just pull him by the leash. Now she is slowly learning to say ‘come’.”

Training the animals

Therapy animals at Senses go through extensive training lasting four to six months. “All animals are trained for human contact and emotions. In fact, we pick only those animals and birds which like to be in touch with humans constantly. For example, Tony, the cockatoo, gets angry if you don’t pet him. All these animals seek human attention which makes them the right candidates to teach children with special needs,” says Aditi.

Charges for an animal therapy session range between Dh450 and Dh650 per person.