Family and child psychologist
Professor Emeritus, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Clinical Psychologist, 35+ years
What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?
As a little boy, my mother didn’t like animals, and I never had a pet. When I was a teenager, we got our first pet, a mouse. My mother started to scream, “It’s a rat!” I went back to the store planning to let them keep the mouse for a few weeks until I could get my mother to be calm. When I went back, I got a gerbil instead. I named her Sasha. It was a cold Canadian winter when I first brought her to a social skills-based program I ran with children with learning disabilities because, even in my teens, I wanted to work with kids and was very involved with the Quebec Association for Children with Learning Disabilities.
One boy said, “Can I hold her?” I looked at the boy and told him he needed to sit down, cross his legs, and I’d sit near him. He needed to promise not to move so Sasha didn’t get scared. Sasha meandered up his tummy and the boy said to me, “You see, I promised you I wouldn’t move.” It was at that moment that I began to understand the power of the human-animal bond.
That was also the beginning of my journey as a clinician, college professor, writer and speaker and how I serendipitously got involved with animal-assisted interventions (AAI). What I have done in my career is not work to me. It’s been a life. Animals have enriched my life. My grandfather once told me: “make a life—not a living—and you’ll be happy.” How right he was!
I earned my bachelor’s in psychology from George Williams University in Montreal, which is now Concordia University. I went on to the University of Southern Alabama for my master’s and earned my EdD at the University of Cincinnati.
I originally thought I would become a faculty member at a university-affiliated center for persons with developmental disabilities. While working on my doctorate, I was speaking at a conference in New Mexico and was approached about an opportunity at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. I ended up taking it, where I spent many years as a professor of education and integrative studies. I’m Emeritus status now—I still teach a class and do committee work along with working with children in my private practice—but it has been a wonderful experience. At my university, many students were the first in their families to go to college. It really is a privilege to join them on their journey of learning. I also teach an adjunct course at Utah State University, in the vet school, about the human-animal bond.
For the past 30 or so years, I also have worked in my clinical practice part time with children with ADHD, learning disabilities, developmental disorders, as well as other challenges with their parents. These experiences in many ways made me a better professor. Since I was trained to do clinical work, I couldn’t see myself just being an academic.
Over the years, my work with animals grew. I started out working with small animals. Sasha was the first, then I worked with guinea pigs and rabbits. Next came large birds, which live a long time. I’d get just-born birds so I could hand-feed them and have that interaction, although sometimes rescue birds allowed my patients to help in the healing process, such as helping heal a broken wing. Then I started using dogs. Over the years, I’ve had many, many different therapy dogs. While I was learning to work alongside animals, I made sure that I learned about the animals from people who understood animal behavior and welfare. It is important to be open to learning from others.
Since 2001, I’ve been doing research and writing on animal welfare and therapy animals and I’ve written a number of books on human-animal interactions including The Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy, Our Faithful Companions and Afternoons with Puppy.
Not every animal can be a therapy animal. Their behavior and temperament need to be consistent and reliable, and they need to enjoy and desire to work with humans. We need be aware of the stress signals animals share with us, so we can preserve their well-being. It is important to be the animal’s voice and advocate to be sure that their well-being is considered. Once, after a talk in Europe, a man came up to me and told me he had a great therapy dog he took to a nursing home once a week. He was worried that she always began to throw up when she got in the car. My first response was, “Isn’t she telling you she doesn’t want to go?”
What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?What are the most important skills and/or qualities for someone in your profession?
Albert Einstein once said creativity is probably more important than intelligence. I can talk about competency and skill sets—and they are really important—but beyond that you have to be passionate about what you do. You have to believe in what you do. You have to be willing to open your mind to realize the many ways to do things. If I had not, I never would have understood that I could combine animals therapeutically with what I do as a psychologist.
You also need to be respectful and humble.
What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?What do you wish you had known going into this profession?
I don’t think there’s anything. Early on, I became a strong ambassador for animal welfare and strongly encouraged people to get training and learn to look at both ends of the leash.
What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?Are there many job opportunities in your profession? In what specific areas?
The early years of animal-assisted interventions, our findings from our research were mainly anecdotal. Now, the state of animal-assisted interventions is really changing. This a whole area of science with a strong need for research to demonstrate the efficacy of what we are doing. You can be a scientist or a researcher and study human animal interactions and animal assisted interventions. I think that’s really important because science should inform policy. There is a lot of good research that explains the human-animal bond. From a clinician standpoint, you find different professionals incorporating animal-assisted interventions as a form of complementary therapy. I am a psychologist who utilizes numerous forms of complementary therapies in my work and one very strong intervention has been partnering with animals. Even as COVID has changed the manner in which I work with children, kids still enjoy seeing my dogs through our Zoom meetings. Sometimes they just want to say hello or watch me brush the dogs while other times some children ask the dog to do different things. Kids even write letters and draw pictures for the dogs.
Early on, animals were primarily involved in AAI to provide emotional support as a social lubricant. As the years have gone on, people have thought of other ways to incorporate animals and appreciate their importance in our lives. You could be a psychiatrist or an occupational therapist. Many city planners are beginning to realize the importance of greenbelts in their communities so people can enjoy walking with their animals and feel more at ease. They are beginning to realize that the animals can act as social capital and encourage more positive interactions.
What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you enjoy least about your job?
Probably what I like best are the times people come back and say, “You changed my life,” or “Your dog changed my life.” I least like that it’s hard to say goodbye when you work alongside animals. We know their lives are shorter. Remember the time you had with each other.
What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?Can you suggest a valuable “try this” for students considering a career in your profession?
Volunteer. That changed my life. Go to a humane society. See if you can register with your pet with an organization like Pet Partners (www.petpartners.org) and volunteer at a nursing home or hospital when that’s permitted. Libraries have reading dog programs. Maybe you can work under the wing of someone who can mentor you.