Transcriber: Matthias Kurz Reviewer: Cuicani Ríos
What if we could speak the language of animals?
What wisdom would they have to share with us?
Many folks are familiar with the idea
that the human-animal bond has therapeutic value.
And anyone who's ever had a beloved pet can probably relate to this.
You may have also heard about the benefits of therapy animal visits to hospitals,
elder care centers, and other settings like this.
This type of human-animal interaction
boasts multiple scientifically supported benefits,
both physiologically and emotionally.
They calm our bodies, ease our minds and make us healthier.
Simply stated, they make us feel good in ways that are backed by science.
In fact, your brains and bodies have been responding,
maybe outside of your awareness, since you first began observing my helper.
This is Killer, the therapy rabbit.
(Laughter)
As humans evolved our highly intelligent brains,
we had to sacrifice certain other biological attributes.
And one of those was our acute senses.
To help us survive that transition,
we began hanging around species of prey animals.
Prey animals are plant-eating animals that are hunted by predators.
You can still see this today in some parts of India and Africa,
where troops of primates stick close to deer and antelope.
Those prey species maintain the highly developed senses that we lost.
Thus they can tell us that there's danger present
long before we could detect it ourselves.
That means when we're observing a common prey animal,
in this case, a rabbit,
our brain is telling our body that we're safe.
This is one of the reasons I like to include Killer with me
when I debrief a client after a crisis.
While prey species, just for example horses and rabbits,
can help our bodies feel calm,
positive interactions with all species of animals
can help us create and strengthen social bonds.
This is because of the influence of oxytocin,
affectionately referred to by some scientists as "the cuddle hormone."
Oxytocin helps us feel warm and fuzzy.
It's a chemical that's released by our brain
when we're close to our loved ones.
But more than that, and of particular importance to my message today:
It's also released when we're having a positive interaction with an animal.
The oxytocin that's released helps us feel calm, happy and safe
and is associated with some of the physiological benefits
that you may have heard of,
such as calming our cardiovascular system.
What's interesting about human-animal interactions
is that when we interact with an animal like Killer,
we experience an oxytocin boost.
It helps us, of course, build our social bond with this animal here.
But interestingly, it has like an area of effect.
It increases our ability to build bonds with people who happen to be near us
when we're having the positive interaction with the animal.
So that's one of many reasons that working with a registered therapy animal
can help counselors and psychotherapists
but strong bonds with the clients they work with.
Outside of therapy, this has a lot of other applications
to other relational contexts.
And you've probably experienced this yourself at one point or another.
Anyone in here ever experienced the "dog park" effect?
Where it's a whole lot easier to talk to and interact with strangers
when you're in the presence of a bunch of happy dogs?
(Laughter)
Yeah, it helps.
Families, too, may also notice that bonding time with each other
is much more possible in the presence of the family pet.
Current research shows us, at least in dogs,
that this oxytocin boost, this warm, fuzzy feeling
that we experience when we interact with an animal,
is reciprocal,
and that dogs experience companionate love similarly to the way people do.
That means that your dog loves you.
All of you in here probably had an intuitive idea,
but we've got science to back
that that loving relationship we perceive with our dogs
is in fact real and accurate.
So one of the first messages that your dog might have for you is,
"I love you too."
Clearly, our animals have some pretty important things to tell us.
And the oxytocin boost and social connectedness
that our interactions with them can bring
represent only a fraction
of how the human-animal bond can be helpful
in a way it's only the tip of the iceberg.
If we can become aware of and interpret
what our animals are saying to us, accurately,
then we can become empowered
to encounter ourselves in relationships in very new ways.
This is because animals are incredibly congruent.
That means that their feelings and their behaviors match.
So they show us exactly how they're feeling
without responding for social appropriateness,
similarly to the way Killer peed on my blazer before we walked out.
(Laughter)
Thank you, bunny, for your congruence.
(Laughter)
So animals can tell us honestly how we're coming across to others.
This is a rare and valuable source of feedback,
because we're so seldom able to get this in human relationships.
Interactions with people, by their very nature, are biased
and influenced by the norms and rules of our cultures.
Interactions with animals, on the other hand, are unfiltered
and unapologetically genuine.
The honesty that that genuineness can bring us means that animals
are going to respond to the way we're coming across
without being concerned about hurting our feelings.
So what do animals tell us?
They tell us the truth.
Many people who experience difficulty interacting with, communicating,
building a relationship with an animal
very often experience similar difficulties with people.
But here's the thing: the person usually isn't aware
that they have similar difficulties with people
until their interaction with that animal reveals it.
That new awareness can empower us to make different choices
and adapt our interactions accordingly,
thus strengthening our relationships with other people.
We've also learned, in some recent studies,
that dogs can tell us what other people think of us.
So it's recently been confirmed that dogs actively observe
how other people treat their owners
and show a very clear preference
for people who are more helpful to their owners.
So that idea of "If my dog doesn't like you, I probably won't either"
may actually hold some water.
(Laughter)
Right, Killer?
(Laughter)
Right now, Killer is being extremely genuine,
and you all have done something in here to make her feel comfortable,
because she's very comfortable showing you her backside.
(Laughter)
I learned a lot of the truth that our animals can tell us
in my relationship with my canine co-counselor...
Sophie, who's a now retired German Shepherd.
Sophie worked alongside me as a registered therapy dog
for a number of years.
She helped me build strong relationships with my clients.
She also acted as a souped-up set of senses,
allowing me to learn things about our clients
that I wouldn't have been able to without her.
And in many instances, she acted as a message bearer
of crucial relational information about our clients,
because of that ability to respond to our clients' body-language,
behaviors and personalities
in a completely congruent and genuine way.
In that way, she was able to help me offer therapeutic services
far beyond the scope of a human counselor.
I have so many Sophie stories that would take all day to tell.
But a few of them from our early work together
really clued me into this idea
that animals can tell us more than we ever realized.
One of my specialty areas is working with survivors of sexual assault.
I had many clients on my caseload who were working to reprocess
the painful memories of their assault.
Normally, throughout our sessions, Sophie would curl up on the couch
and cuddle up with our clients...
until they began to reprocess one of those memories.
Every time that happened, without fail,
Sophie would get up from the couch and go guard the door.
This helped our clients feel safe and nurtured,
but it also clued me in to emotional shifts
that were happening in session,
no matter how subtle they might be.
Another thing Sophie taught me,
was that animals can tell when humans might need medical attention.
One day, as we went to greet our client in the waiting room,
we happened to pass by the client of another counselor,
who happened to be a young woman.
As we went to pass this young woman,
Sophie responded with very clear signs of fearfulness.
She cowered, tried to hide behind me,
and did everything she possibly could to get away from her.
In all of our years working together,
I'd never seen brave and stoic Sophie respond this way,
especially to a young woman.
We later learned that this person was struggling with disordered eating,
and that her body was in ketosis, which is a detrimental process
during which muscles are broken down for energy.
Although we didn't understand at the time,
Sophie was trying to tell us that something was wrong
and that this person needed help.
She would also sometimes tell me things
about other staff members and occasionally strangers.
Every so often in our work together and in our personal lives together,
we'd run across a person who is afraid of dogs,
which is especially obvious in the presence
of a hundred-pound German Shepherd.
(Laughter)
No matter how subtle this person was trying to be
in concealing their anxiety,
I'd always be able to tell who was afraid of dogs,
because Sophie would be uncharacteristically insistent
and stubborn about "I need to go and comfort this person."
(Laughter)
I know, poor Sophie,
she had no idea that she was actually the cause of the anxiety,
and she wanted desperately to help alleviate it.
(Laughter)
She'd often be very confused and frustrated with me
that I wouldn't let her go do her job.
So these are just a few examples of this idea
that, clearly, our animals have some really important things to say,
if we're willing and able to listen.
If we're able to accurately interpret our animals' information,
they can give us important clues about our health,
our relationships, our emotions,
and how others probably perceive us.
As I mentioned earlier,
a lot of the concepts that we've talked about today
represent only the tip of the iceberg,
when it comes to understanding the power of the human-animal bond.
There's still so much we don't know.
And so I invite you to ponder these ideas with your own animals in mind,
and to educate yourself about how the animals in your life communicate.
Because the more expert you become
at listening to and then accurately interpreting
what your animals are communicating to you,
the more expert you become
at navigating and improving all of the relationships in your life,
human or animal.
(Applause)