Chance encounters lead to Mobility Dogs study
Wed Oct 07 2015 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Chance encounters lead to Mobility Dogs study
07 October 2015
Dr Helen Spence with Chance
Chance encounters led to the first in depth study to investigate the impact of Mobility Dogs on the lives of people with movement disorders in New Zealand.
Dr Helen Spence recently graduated with a PhD from the University of Auckland that focussed on Mobility Dogs versus companion dogs for people with mobility challenges.
“It really was a chance meeting that started all this,” says Helen. “I was out walking when a man in the street approached me, saying he was looking for a puppy-raiser for a Golden Retriever donated to the Mobility Assistance Dogs Trust (MADT) by animal welfare.”
“He told me about this organisation that was just being launched in New Zealand,” she says. “I had never had a dog of my own before, and my first reaction was to tell him that I don’t really like dogs!”.
But she decided that as her three children (then aged 13 to 21) had over the years asked about having a dog that maybe puppy-raising was the answer.
“I thought, that’s only one year, so they could have the canine experience without the long-term commitment of owning a dog, so I took him on,” she says.
That was nine years ago and Chance is still faithfully by her side.
“He did well in puppy training for a Mobility Dog, but his left front leg gave out as he grew – a growth deformity in both long bones required two major surgeries,” says Helen. ”For a dog associated with the disability sector, in a way it’s been quite a nice fit, as he’s a dog that ‘knows’ about disability.”
At that point the Trust told Helen, the operations were career ending for a service dog and offered her Chance.
“There I was in the space of nine months, gone from a short-term dog to a longer-term dog, and he was showing promise in training,” she says.
The Trust was very small then, barely established, and they said that overseas organisations often have ambassador dogs – Ambassadogs – to help promote the work, get some profile and show people what the dogs can do. They offered Helen a role as an ambassador for the Trust and she worked full-time for the Trust for five years.
“Chance could continue to be trained so he mastered sufficient service dog tasks to make a presentation to business groups and community organisations interesting,” she says.
Her role was mainly communications/marketing/fundraising type work and in 2011 she was at the Centre for Brain Research’s annual Brain Day at the University of Auckland, as one of the community expo organisations that provide support services to people with neurological conditions.
“Mobility Dogs are working with people who live with Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Parkinsons … as they are trained to provide assistance to people with long-term physical disabilities,” she says.
“While I was on the stall, I was approached by a social scientist with the University’s School of Population Health in General Practice and Primary Healthcare, Associate Professor Stephen Buetow who had just been involved in a project with summer school students who looked at the meaning and significance of pets in the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease.”
When he saw Mobility Dogs at the expo, he was interested to talk to someone in the organisation about these dogs and whether they could support someone with Parkinson’s disease.
“In a followup meeting, he asked me if I was interested in coming back to University [Helen has a Bachelor of Science with honours in Psychology]. After some time, an idea of coming back to University to do a research project based around these dogs developed,” she says.
A year later, at the start of 2012, she enrolled in a PhD with Dr Buetow as her main supervisor. The study was broadened from the Parkinson’s focus to the final research question, that compared the use of companion dogs and Mobility Dogs, but also included case studies of people living with Parkinson’s using dogs for support.
“This research suggests policy implications for companion dogs and service dogs to be considered alongside usual support systems associated with the long-term management of movement disorders,” says Helen. “It may also inform recommendations to improve aspects of service dog practice and delivery.”
“This partnering of me with one of MADT’s canine ambassadors has shown me that dogs can be used as an intervention to foster positive life experiences in people and enhance their quality of life,” she says. “But the literature is uncertain whether service dogs are more effective in this regard than companion dogs, especially for people with movement disorders.”
The final chapter of Helen’s comprehensive doctoral study on her research question includes implications for service dog organisations, public access for companion dogs, retirement villages, public education, and for further research.
She concludes her thesis with the notion of a ‘canine prescription’ as a quality of life intervention for people with movement disorders, but says it’s another thing to have it taken seriously by health professionals.
“Overall, the preliminary findings of my feasibility study support a canine prescription for people with movement disorders who choose to share their lives with a dog,” she says. “My study has gone some way to show the comparative effects of companion dogs and service dogs (Mobility Dogs) on quality of life in people with movement disorders.”
“A future large-scale longitudinal mixed methods approach would build on my preliminary findings to investigate further quality of life as an appropriate framework for studying these human-canine relationships.”
Helen proposes a widening in perspective of the service dog concept to include suitably trained companion dogs and to also consider training small breeds of service dog to better meet the needs of more people.
“The psychosocial benefits inherent in the roles dogs can play to impact quality of life may be at least as important as functional assistance in enriching quality of life in people with movement disorders,” she says.
For media enquiries email Suzi Phillips at this link.