national

Therapy dogs taking anxiety out of legal system for abused kids

13 Comments
By Daisuke Izawa

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© KYODO

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

13 Comments
Login to comment

Doggies have no judgement, happy to see this working for kids.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

A Four Legged animal is A Two Legged animal's best friend ever since their friendship began in historically forgotten time.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I JUST LOVE THESE EARS OF HIS, Lovely DDG.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

gold.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Among animals, dogs are and have been proven to be man's best friend. There are so many breeds of dogs with sizes from the Great Dane to others as small as a squirel. All dogs can be brought up and trained to be friendly and loving other people and other dogs. But they can also be brought up and trained to be ferocious, unfriendly and kill people by their owners, thus giving some breeds a bad name. The bull-terrier or pit-bull is one example. It is one of the most loving dogs to children, people and other dogs.

There is a short story by Guy de Mauparssant entitled Vendetta. A woman whose son was killed by a man who lived near-by, planned revenge. She bought a young pit-bull, made the figure of a standing clothed man, stuffed its neck with sausages and, once every week, pointing her finger at the figure, she would shout, "Attack!" And the pit-bull would spring to the neck of the figure to get at the sausages. She carefully observed the man's daily routine and knew what time he would leave his house. After a few months training, she brings her young pit-bull to the gate of the man's house. When the man comes out the door, she points a finger at him and, releasing her young pit-bull, she shouts, "Attack!"

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I Nominate my cat Chip for the job, he is an unbelievable companion, good listener, and most of all funny and playful. YES dogs do great job, but cats will do the same if not even better, you can leave them with the kids and the will give them the unlimited love and companionship that NO HUMAN could match.

They wont use cats here, as training cats would be long and tedious, compared to dogs, and in the end cats will do what they want.

You can leave dogs with kids too, and they will stay with the child as well. Cats are too unpredictable.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Among animals, dogs are and have been proven to be man's best friend. There are so many breeds of dogs with sizes from the Great Dane to others as small as a squirel. 

The breeds that have worked the best, for them here, are the one's they choose for support training.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Ironically, such cruelty occurs while the pet killers/abusers/neglecters are unaware of the real potential for, let alone the actuality of, healthy reciprocal relationships — some animal lovers would even go as far as to describe it as somewhat symbiotic — between animals and their loving and appreciative human hosts, especially when the latter party has been seriously traumatized.

That’s partly why I generally prefer pet animals over people: there’s a beautiful absence of that distinctly human trait of true malice.

I recall a newspaper editor expressing her surprise and dismay at an opinion poll’s results revealing that more than a third of surveyed adults “would, under some circumstances, choose to save the life of their dog over the life of a human being, if they could save only one.”

She felt this way regardless of the hypothetical other person being a complete stranger. I as well as many other readers, however, were/are surprised the percentage wasn’t much higher!

I believe that along with human intelligence comes the proportionate reprehensible potential for malice-for-malice’s-sake. 

While, generally being of lower intelligence than humans, animals can react violently, it is typically due to distrust; however, leave it to humans to commit a spiteful act, if only because we can. 

Also, note how unusually nice people with, for example, Down Syndrome are — all to their credit, of course — when compared to the average, or above, IQ population. I doubt it’s coincidental.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Many dogs can sense when someone is hurting and they instinctively go to comfort them. This is a wonderful program and I hope that it continues. I work in care homes teaching English to children who have been abused through JOEE.jp. They, too, would benefit from having contact with a therapy dog.

What a wonderful thing it would be for these homes to have a well-trained dog to comfort the children 24/7. Dogs can teach empathy which is an important thing to learn from a young age. I hope that these comfort animal programs can get more funding as they are important to the emotional healing of young abuse victims.

We had a golden retriever who visited schools with me and was so gentle that he helped some young children get over their fear of dogs. He passed away several years ago, but I hope to one day have another gentle dog.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I Nominate my cat Chip for the job, he is an unbelievable companion, good listener, and most of all funny and playful. YES dogs do great job, but cats will do the same if not even better, you can leave them with the kids and the will give them the unlimited love and companionship that NO HUMAN could match.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Every dog is an emotional support dog if you allow it to be so. Just the most wonderful creatures.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites