Companion Animals

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Is anyone aware of nursing roles in the field of animal companions? I'm a nursing student who is exploring opportunities for specializing. Any info. in this area would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

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Specializes in Medical Surgical Orthopedic.

Do you mean "pet therapy"? ...where animals interact with the sick/elderly/etc? If so, I'm under the impression that volunteers keep those programs operating. An actual nursing (and paying) position would be pretty rare if it existed at all.

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Specializes in ER.

Email me- I am in the process of setting up one of these programs at my hospital- [email protected]

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I volunteer my animals - dogs, cats and horses - for animal therapy.

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I was thinking seizure alert dogs or those that assist the blind, etc.

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This article is from 2000, but this nursing educator may be a resource person

for you--

http://www.uthscsa.edu/opa/issues/new33-31/nursing.htm

Best wishes!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

http://www.catanddoghelp.com/

Companion animals are different from service animals which are also different from therapy animals.

http://www.companionanimalprogram.com/

companion: A pet is an animal kept for companionship and enjoyment or a household animal, as opposed to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic reasons.

service: Service animals are animals that have been trained to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities. Service animals may also be referred to as "assistance animals," "assist animals," "support animals," or "helper animals" depending on country.

therapy: A therapy dog is a dog trained to provide affection and comfort to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, with people with learning difficulties and stressful situations such as disaster areas.

while all of these animals are as equally valuable they are not given the same protection under the law. Companion dogs are viewed as "pets" and therfore not given the access afforded to service animals. But companion animals as truly necesary for their people example: A veteran with PTSD needs their dog to funtion emotionally every day. It's not just becasue they loved their dogs.....

Good luck on your search. :)

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Service animals are often trained by volunteer based organizations such as Canine Companions for Independence as they often utilize donations to fund the cost of training the animals.

http://www.cci.org

(While called canine companions they train service dogs, facility dogs (therapy dogs trained for a specific facility's needs such as a pediatric cancer ward), hearing dogs, and skilled companion dogs (dogs placed with a facilitator for use of someone with special needs (often a school aged or teen-aged, child)

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