Using Pets to Meet Occupational Therapy Goals in the Virtual Setting

In my practice with elementary and middle school students at AIM Academy, a school for students who learn differently, I’m fortunate to be able to incorporate a facility dog, Kelly, into sessions. Kelly is a black lab, poodle, golden retriever mix, trained by Paws and Affection to work with children who have special needs. Kelly helps students work toward their therapy goals by providing a calming presence as well as participating in various activities, including listening to students read, checking the neatness of their handwriting, making sure they’re using the correct fingers for typing, participating in exercises, playing games, and helping students practice mindfulness.

Since Kelly was unable to work directly with students in the virtual environment, I had to adjust the practices in which I would normally include Kelly. To begin, I took notice of resources available in students’ homes and incorporated those items into our sessions. For example, one student had a puzzle cube with animal pictures on it. To address gross motor goals, I asked the student to perform “animal walks” according to which animals came up on the cube. In another example, students identified interesting objects in their rooms, photographed them with their phones, responded to prompts, and edited their work to address writing goals. One student participated in mindful awareness to address his self-regulation goals while walking outside his home. While doing so, he noted pictures in clouds, described items he saw around him, and tuned in to sensations such as temperature, or the changing sensations under his bare feet as he walked across varied outdoor surfaces.

After noting that several students had pets present during sessions, I began to transfer activities performed with AIM’s facility dog to the home environment. Dogs — and even one cat — provided opportunities to practice mindful awareness of sensations, such as the warmth and weight of a pet on the student’s lap, the texture of fur, and counting of a pet’s heartbeat and breath. A student performed exercises with his dog similarly to how he practiced them with Kelly, by maintaining specific positions while petting or giving treats to his dog. A pet dog helped to motivate student performance, as Kelly did at school, just by being present with the student, who pretended that his dog had completed a drawing and participated in a typing lesson.