Animal assisted therapy gaining in popularity

Central
Tuesday February 19, 2008

Animal assisted therapy gaining in popularity

By WANI MUTHIAH

THE Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association (Petpositive) founder president Anthony Thanasayan’s only hope currently is to open a centre to cater to the needs of the disabled.

Anthony, who is pleased as punch that animal assisted therapy is gaining popularity among the disabled community, reckoned it is timely for the association to have its own centre.

“Quite a large number of the disabled come to Petpositive’s activities and I feel that we owe it to them to have a place for them to come to,’’ said Anthony.

He added Petpositive’s activities such as the jungle tracking event at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia’s (FRIM) botanical gardens in October and the Deepavali party in early December last year received overwhelming response from the disabled community.


Time for a get together: Some of the guests who turned up for the Deepavali bash in Oct.

“Those who attended the FRIM outing included people in wheelchairs as well as the blind and deaf,’’ said Anthony adding that they were exposed to various animals including frogs.

According to him going by the reaction of the participants, animal assisted therapy was indeed something that could create a strong positive impact on the disabled.

He said this was also seen during Petpositive’s Deepavali party, which was sponsored by the Brickfields Hanuman Temple committee.

“The disabled were given a chance to ride a horse as well as a pony and it proved to be a memorable event for them as most spent their life confined at home,’’ said Anthony.

He said the efficacy of animal-assisted therapy for the disabled had been proven in many parts of the world.

However, Anthony’s only grouse is that dogs were more often regarded with scorn and disdain by some Malaysians and were not allowed to accompany their disabled owners to public places.

“Dogs are the best companions for the disabled and they can also be trained as service dogs,’’ said Anthony who has several service dogs himself.

He added that the service dogs trained to serve the disabled were very focused and cannot be distracted by anything.

“These dogs are trained to serve their disabled human companions since they were pups and that remains their only goal throughout their canine lives.


Here for you: Thanasayan's service dog Soolam who accompanies him everywhere.

“And so, even if they were out among the general public, they would not leave their owners’ side, let alone look at anyone else,’’ said Anthony.

He said it was also befuddling that the authorities found it to be alright to allow VCD sniffer dogs access to public places but did not accord the same to service dogs.

Anthony said these were also reasons as to why Petpositive urgently needed its own premises to allow the disabled access to animal assisted therapy as well as to provide them a place to bring their service dogs.

“We need a corner lot single storey house with a garden located in either Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya or Klang for our centre and hope that some kind Samaritan would sponsor its monthly rental for us,’’ he said.

He added Petpositive also hoped that house owners who had unoccupied properties would allow the organisation the use of their premises.

“I hope 2008 would prove to be the year where Petpositive would be able to finally set-up its centre to help the disabled with animal-assisted thereby,’’ said Anthony.