Should Kids With Special Needs Have Pets?

Service dogs can be a wonderful help to some kids with special needs. Besides the work they're trained to do, they can be loved as much as any pets. But only certain kids need them and can handle learning how to work with them. What about other kids with special needs? Should they have pets or not?

That depends on many factors. If the child is likely to be harmed by a pet, such as by an allergic reaction, the answer is obviously no. And if children are likely to harm pets they shouldn't have any.

But for kids who don't fall in either obvious category, here are some factors to consider: Will the pet require care the child is unable to give? If so, can someone else provide it? If the child is likely to be hospitalized for extended periods can the pet be left alone or is other care available? Might sanitation be a problem?

And if a pet is appropriate, what kind is best?

Many kids can benefit from the affection and physical contact of a cat or dog while others might enjoy watching fish or other creatures in an cage or terrarium for extended periods. A small rodent can provide both some warm, physical contact and time to watch them from outside the cage.

Even children who can't have their own pets can benefit from animals such as therapy dogs and horses. A good example of that is this book about a therapy horse: http://andyandthealbinohorse.blogspot.com/

Animals

On my other blog, http://onwordsblog.blogspot.com , I wrote about pets for kids today. That reminded me of the wonderful people, both children and adults, who train service dogs. Animals like that make a tremendous difference in the lives of people who need them, but it must be difficult to for the trainers to spend months teaching the puppies and young dogs how to help people, only to give them up. 

If you have a service dog or know someone who does, please take a moment to think of the wonderful people who taught it how to do the things that make lives easier and send them a note of thanks.

Dogs With Special Needs

A few weeks ago I blogged about service dogs and cats who help people with special needs. Often animals have special needs of their own, which may make it difficult and expensive to care for them. For instance, one of our small dogs was on a special diet that cost more than the food for several larger dogs would have. According to TV reports, Gibson, the biggest dog in the world, recently had a leg amputated because of cancer. These are only two out of thousands of possible examples.

Once we had two deaf dalmations. As with many deaf humans, they didn't consider themselves disabled and were only mildly inconvenienced by being unable yo hear. They didn't know what they were missing.

Since dogs (and many other animals) naturally communicate using body language, it was easy for them to learn to understand commands in American Sign Language. One of them learned to understand over 300 signs, mostly names of people, animals, places and foods and taught her humans to understand about thirty dog "signs"

Service Cat

     A while back I took care of a friend's service dog while she was having medical treatment. The dog was happy to get out of his own yard when he wasn't working so it was okay to sniff around and socialize with other dogs and humans.

     Service dogs are a tremendous help to people who need them, but have you ever known a service cat? I have.

     Years ago I knew one that belonged to a deaf couple. That was before blinking light doorbells had been invented. The man had tied a cat toy to a long string and fastened the other end of the string to a ceiling light fixture in the center of the living room. They kept the toy fastened very lightly to the inside of the front door. If someone knocked on the door the toy would fall off, swing across the room, and the cat would jump after it so they always knew if someone had come to visit. 

     But that's not all. The cat would come wake them up if their baby cried during the night. It would nudge them and lead them to the baby if it cried in the daytime, too. It was a wonderful help to that family.

     I wonder what other animals have been helpful to people with special needs.