Transcriber: Matthias Kurz
Reviewer: Cuicani Ríos What if we could speak
the language of animals? What wisdom would they have
to share with us? Many folks are familiar with the idea that the human-animal bond
has therapeutic value. And anyone who's ever had
a beloved pet can probably relate to this. You may have also heard about the benefits
of therapy animal visits to hospitals, elder care centers,
and other settings like this. This type of human-animal interaction boasts multiple
scientifically supported benefits, both physiologically and emotionally. They calm our bodies, ease
our minds and make us healthier. Simply stated, they make us feel good
in ways that are backed by science. In fact, your brains and bodies
have been responding, maybe outside of your awareness,
since you first began observing my helper. This is Killer, the therapy rabbit. (Laughter) As humans evolved
our highly intelligent brains, we had to sacrifice
certain other biological attributes. And one of those was our acute senses. To help us survive that transition, we began hanging around
species of prey animals. Prey animals are plant-eating animals
that are hunted by predators. You can still see this today
in some parts of India and Africa, where troops of primates stick
close to deer and antelope. Those prey species maintain
the highly developed senses that we lost. Thus they can tell us
that there's danger present long before we could detect it ourselves. That means when we're observing
a common prey animal, in this case, a rabbit, our brain is telling
our body that we're safe. This is one of the reasons
I like to include Killer with me when I debrief a client after a crisis. While prey species, just for example
horses and rabbits, can help our bodies feel calm, positive interactions
with all species of animals can help us create
and strengthen social bonds. This is because
of the influence of oxytocin, affectionately referred to by some
scientists as "the cuddle hormone." Oxytocin helps us feel warm and fuzzy. It's a chemical
that's released by our brain when we're close to our loved ones. But more than that, and of particular
importance to my message today: It's also released when we're having
a positive interaction with an animal. The oxytocin that's released
helps us feel calm, happy and safe and is associated with some
of the physiological benefits that you may have heard of, such as calming our cardiovascular system. What's interesting
about human-animal interactions is that when we interact
with an animal like Killer, we experience an oxytocin boost. It helps us, of course, build
our social bond with this animal here. But interestingly,
it has like an area of effect. It increases our ability to build bonds
with people who happen to be near us when we're having the positive
interaction with the animal. So that's one of many reasons that working
with a registered therapy animal can help counselors and psychotherapists but strong bonds
with the clients they work with. Outside of therapy,
this has a lot of other applications to other relational contexts. And you've probably experienced
this yourself at one point or another. Anyone in here ever experienced
the "dog park" effect? Where it's a whole lot easier
to talk to and interact with strangers when you're in the presence
of a bunch of happy dogs? (Laughter) Yeah, it helps. Families, too, may also notice
that bonding time with each other is much more possible
in the presence of the family pet. Current research
shows us, at least in dogs, that this oxytocin boost,
this warm, fuzzy feeling that we experience
when we interact with an animal, is reciprocal, and that dogs experience companionate love
similarly to the way people do. That means that your dog loves you. All of you in here probably had
an intuitive idea, but we've got science to back that that loving relationship
we perceive with our dogs is in fact real and accurate. So one of the first messages
that your dog might have for you is, "I love you too." Clearly, our animals have
some pretty important things to tell us. And the oxytocin boost
and social connectedness that our interactions with them can bring represent only a fraction of how the human-animal bond
can be helpful in a way it's only the tip of the iceberg. If we can become aware of and interpret what our animals
are saying to us, accurately, then we can become empowered to encounter ourselves
in relationships in very new ways. This is because animals
are incredibly congruent. That means that their feelings
and their behaviors match. So they show us exactly
how they're feeling without responding
for social appropriateness, similarly to the way Killer peed
on my blazer before we walked out. (Laughter) Thank you, bunny, for your congruence. (Laughter) So animals can tell us honestly
how we're coming across to others. This is a rare and valuable
source of feedback, because we're so seldom able
to get this in human relationships. Interactions with people,
by their very nature, are biased and influenced by the norms
and rules of our cultures. Interactions with animals,
on the other hand, are unfiltered and unapologetically genuine. The honesty that that genuineness
can bring us means that animals are going to respond
to the way we're coming across without being concerned
about hurting our feelings. So what do animals tell us? They tell us the truth. Many people who experience difficulty
interacting with, communicating, building a relationship with an animal very often experience
similar difficulties with people. But here's the thing:
the person usually isn't aware that they have similar
difficulties with people until their interaction
with that animal reveals it. That new awareness can empower us
to make different choices and adapt our interactions accordingly, thus strengthening our relationships
with other people. We've also learned,
in some recent studies, that dogs can tell us
what other people think of us. So it's recently been confirmed
that dogs actively observe how other people treat their owners and show a very clear preference for people who are
more helpful to their owners. So that idea of "If my dog doesn't
like you, I probably won't either" may actually hold some water. (Laughter) Right, Killer? (Laughter) Right now, Killer is being
extremely genuine, and you all have done something in here
to make her feel comfortable, because she's very comfortable
showing you her backside. (Laughter) I learned a lot of the truth
that our animals can tell us in my relationship
with my canine co-counselor... Sophie, who's a now retired
German Shepherd. Sophie worked alongside me
as a registered therapy dog for a number of years. She helped me build strong
relationships with my clients. She also acted
as a souped-up set of senses, allowing me to learn things
about our clients that I wouldn't have been able
to without her. And in many instances,
she acted as a message bearer of crucial relational information
about our clients, because of that ability to respond
to our clients' body-language, behaviors and personalities in a completely congruent and genuine way. In that way, she was able to help me
offer therapeutic services far beyond the scope of a human counselor. I have so many Sophie stories
that would take all day to tell. But a few of them
from our early work together really clued me into this idea that animals can tell us
more than we ever realized. One of my specialty areas is working
with survivors of sexual assault. I had many clients on my caseload
who were working to reprocess the painful memories of their assault. Normally, throughout our sessions,
Sophie would curl up on the couch and cuddle up with our clients... until they began to reprocess
one of those memories. Every time that happened, without fail, Sophie would get up from the couch
and go guard the door. This helped our clients
feel safe and nurtured, but it also clued me in
to emotional shifts that were happening in session, no matter how subtle they might be. Another thing Sophie taught me, was that animals can tell when humans
might need medical attention. One day, as we went to greet
our client in the waiting room, we happened to pass by the client
of another counselor, who happened to be a young woman. As we went to pass this young woman, Sophie responded with very clear
signs of fearfulness. She cowered, tried to hide behind me, and did everything she possibly could
to get away from her. In all of our years working together, I'd never seen brave and stoic Sophie
respond this way, especially to a young woman. We later learned that this person
was struggling with disordered eating, and that her body was in ketosis,
which is a detrimental process during which muscles
are broken down for energy. Although we didn't understand at the time, Sophie was trying to tell us
that something was wrong and that this person needed help. She would also sometimes tell me things about other staff members
and occasionally strangers. Every so often in our work together
and in our personal lives together, we'd run across a person
who is afraid of dogs, which is especially
obvious in the presence of a hundred-pound German Shepherd. (Laughter) No matter how subtle this person
was trying to be in concealing their anxiety, I'd always be able to tell
who was afraid of dogs, because Sophie would be
uncharacteristically insistent and stubborn about "I need to go
and comfort this person." (Laughter) I know, poor Sophie, she had no idea that she was actually
the cause of the anxiety, and she wanted desperately
to help alleviate it. (Laughter) She'd often be very confused
and frustrated with me that I wouldn't let her go do her job. So these are just a few
examples of this idea that, clearly, our animals have
some really important things to say, if we're willing and able to listen. If we're able to accurately interpret
our animals' information, they can give us important clues
about our health, our relationships, our emotions, and how others probably perceive us. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the concepts
that we've talked about today represent only the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to understanding
the power of the human-animal bond. There's still so much we don't know. And so I invite you to ponder these ideas
with your own animals in mind, and to educate yourself about
how the animals in your life communicate. Because the more expert you become at listening to and then
accurately interpreting what your animals
are communicating to you, the more expert you become at navigating and improving
all of the relationships in your life, human or animal. (Applause)
