by Carrie E. Muffett, MD

The idea that animals have healing powers reaches back to the dawn of human civilization. The Mayans, for example, believed that each of us is given a "soul animal" to serve as a protective guide in earthly life. The Egyptian deity Anubis, physician of the gods, bore a canine head. In ancient Greece, the healing cult of Aesculapius used dogs to lick the sick with their tongues. Florence Nightingale promoted pet ownership as a way to ease the suffering of the chronically ill.

One of the earliest recorded uses of structured animal therapy was at the York Retreat in England, which was founded in 1792 as an alternative to conventional therapy at “lunatic asylums” of the period.  Patients at the York Retreat were taught self-control as they were charged with the routine care of animals in the program.  This program became a model for reform of other asylums. 

In the United States, the first organized use of animal therapy was at the Army Air Corps Convalescent Center in Pauling, New York near the end of WWII.  This program was run by the American Red Cross and included a working farm as well as pet animals.

In the early 1960’s, Boris Levinson incorporated animals into his psychology practice.  He introduced the term “pet-facilitated therapy.”

In the most recent decades, pet-facilitated therapy has been used by a wide variety of individuals, including cardiac patients, psychiatric inpatients, emotionally disturbed youth, prison inmates, pediatric patients, and elderly patients from both institutionalized and outpatient settings.