Healing Support Project for Therapeutic Groups through Dog Assisted Therapy

Introduction – AAT

Animal-Assisted Therapies (AATs) appeared for the first time in Europe more than two centuries ago, and for more than 70 years they have also been applied in Brazil. Recently, they are becoming more and more known and recognized as an important complementary therapeutic technique. It is a therapeutic intervention that incorporates animals, such as horses, dogs, cats, pigs, and birds, into a treatment plan. It is used to enhance and complement the benefits of traditional therapy.

Animals support people in physical and emotional healing processes. There are many projects that bring therapy animals to hospitals, schools, elderly retreats, and therapeutic institutions among others. They even take them to universities to help students with stress during exam periods or even to airports, such as in San Francisco (US) to distress anxious passengers. The animals involved are usually dogs. The effectiveness of this complementary therapeutic treatment is completely proven.

Until today, it has always been the dogs taken to the spaces where they are needed (hospitals, schools, retreats, etc).

Our proposal is innovative and it deepens. It is actually an immersion.

Here, humans come to the dogs’ space. We run a holistic nature center, where our healing dogs were born and have never been separated from each other. Dogs welcome visitors playing the role of co-hosts and they act spontaneously as co-therapists. They form a lovely canine family of 3 generations, and naturally attend and act in courses and holistic events which are held here.

With this, we are presenting a pioneering and unique therapeutic proposal.