ANIMAL-THERAPY

The joy and privilege of over 40 years combining both
counseling-psychology for humans (individuals, couples, families, group conflict mediation)
along with the rescue-rehabilitation of animals (orphaned, injured, abused),
has revealed amazing truths about the vital connection
between humans, sentient animals, and nature.
And now finally, modern scientific research supports these important findings.

“Animals are not property or ‘things,’ but rather living organisms, subjects of a life, who are worthy of our compassion, respect, friendship, and support. There is absolutely no doubt that countless nonhuman animals are sentient beings who feel deeply and passionately.”
Dr. Marc Bekoff, Emeritus Professor of Animal Behavior, University of Colorado.

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IN MANY WAYS, I IDENTIFY AS AN “ANIMAL”.
I’M BURDENED TO SPEAK FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY’RE
THE MOST VULNERABLE AND OFTEN ABUSED BEINGS ON EARTH.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves ….” Proverbs 31:8

(The New Long-Essay or Book coming)
AMAZING WILD-EXOTIC-DOMESTIC ANIMAL FRIENDS I’VE BEEN PRIVILEGED TO SERVE, KNOW, & LOVE:
Who’ve Helped Heal 100’s of Hearts Through Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) – including my own!
– including lions, tigers, bears, wolves, hyenas, … elephants, dogs, otters, raccoons, owls, ducks, & many more ….
– to me they were friends: Bratar, Rani, Akela, Rakshi, Banu, Byomi, Jean, Panya, Bartley, Scotty, Ollie, Panya, …..
– each of these animal friends were personal therapists to me from childhood, throughout adulthood, and now ….
– Here below are some SAMPLE CHAPTERS coming in this little book (booklet) . . . . . . .

(Article 2-pages) CURLY, MY LITTLE ORPHANED AND STARVING CALF
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF)

(ARTICLE 5 -pages) THE DAY COMPASSION FACED A 500-POUND LION:
My True Story of Overcoming Fear Through Love
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF) –

(7-pages) MANDY, MY COMPASSIONATE LEOPARD FRIEND:
How One Soft as a Cloud Leopard Saved My Life and Even Helped Me Find My Wife
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF) –

(4-pages) HOW RORY THE RACCOON GOT “SAVED”
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF) –

(3-pages) ALI, MY FRIEND THE BITTER BLACK LEOPARD: Transformed From Violent PTSD To Trusting In Love.
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF) –

(4-pages) BANU, MY FRIEND THE GENIUS COMEDIAN SUN BEAR who loved to play pranks on his human caregiver friends and on the other bears –
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF) –

*** MORE ANIMAL STORIES TO COME – CLICK HERE FOR A LONG PDF LIST

* A STATEMENT ON ZOOS & CAPTIVE ANIMALS —  The subject is understandably controversial, with many good people having different valuable perspectives. Have you had negative feelings about zoos and captive animals? I empathize with you! If you research carefully, you will find that good, bad, and very ugly exists across the wide range of facilities and activities. When it’s bad and ugly, it’s sadly easy to see — while the good and wonderful is often more subtle and behind the scenes. The best of facilities are motivated and designed around compassion, conservation, and education. Their animals are loved and protected by their caregiver keepers, and enjoy far better lives than those in the “wild” who must struggle and suffer violent competitive survival of the fittest, coolest, and cruelest, against predators, disease, drought, floods, fires, etc. Without captive animals, many species would otherwise go extinct. And the educational impact of new generations seeing, hearing, and caring about their local captive animal “friends” motivates actions to preserve and protect the world’s natural habitats and inhabitants.

Arthur Schopenhauer PhD  German Philosopher (1841 book – On the Basis of Morality) 
“Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character,
and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.”

(ESSAY 28-pages) THE JOY OF COMPASSIONATE PLANT-POWERED EATING/LIVING
(DOWNLOADABLE PDF) – Dr. Albert Schweitzer, World renowned humanitarian – “We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.”
1 – ETHICS: Suffering of Humans & Sentient-Animals
2 – PLEASURE: Better than animal-flesh, when seasoned the same 
3-  HEALTH: Physical, Mental, Relational-Cultural
4 – ECONOMICS: Personal, Societal, Global 
5 – ECOLOGY: Water, Land, Air, Home
6 –THEOLOGY:  Compassion is the “Way” of our Mutual Creator

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“…. [The Creator] is testing [humankind] that they may see that they themselves are animals.”
Ecclesiastes 3:18 ESV adapted

LEO TOLSTOY
“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”

PYTHAGORAS
“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.”
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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SERVICE-DOG, THERAPY-DOG, & EMOTIONAL-SUPPORT DOG?
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/training/service-working-therapy-emotional-support-dogs/

WHAT IS AAT – ANIMAL ASSISTED THERAPY (AAI – Animal Assisted Interventions)?
– AVMA (An overview article from the American Veterinary Medical Association)
– Simran Myadas, Counselor LPC, Healing with Paws: The Emotional Benefits of Therapy Dogs
* Simran is among our favorite new Texas friends, and one of the most compassionate people we know.

Above are the past three service-dogs I trained to work with me in counseling (from left to right):
SCOTTY (passed) – SUZY (passed) – BUDDY (currently serving)

BELOW is Linda, my wife, learning about human-owl bonding.
The Elephant photo is my old conservation zoo friend PANYA providing AAT for my students in the elephant barn.

I’ll be adding many more stories, articles, photos, videos, & links . . . .

Dr. Marc Bekoff PhD, University of Colorado, Professor of Animal Behavior. The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy, and Why They Matter“.
“I like to say that the plural of anecdote is data. Anecdotes are central to the study of animal behavior and animal emotions, as they are to much of science, and rightfully so. Emotions don’t occur in a vacuum. They occur in context; there are events that cause them, and consequences that follow, and to properly describe them means telling a story.” p. 121

BELOW ARE DIRECT VERIFIED QUOTES RE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ANIMAL CRUELTY AND HUMAN CRUELTY:

CS Lewis – “In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.” From his book of essays, GOD IN THE DOCK.

CS Lewis – “The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims, and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more”

CS Lewis – “The tame animal is, in the deepest sense, the only natural animal – the only one we see occupying the place it was made to occupy… “

Arthur Schopenhauer PhD  German Philosopher — “Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.”
1841 prize essay, On the Basis of Morality in Chapter II, Section 19, “The Moral Incentive”

Immanuel Kant: “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” From his Lectures on Ethics

Mahatma Gandhi: “”I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”

Leo Tolstoy — “As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”— Adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s, The First Step (1892)

Pythagoras —“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.” (As attributed to Pythagoras by the Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses)

Charles Darwin: “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”
1871 book,The Descent of Man (specifically in Chapter III, “Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals”

Albert Schweitzer: “Ethics is nothing other than reverence for life. Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life is evil.”

Plutarch: “Indeed, for me, the very crossing of a bridge or the killing of a small animal is a matter of profound concern. Surely humanity does not extend only to the human race.” – from is famous work, Life of Cato the Elder.
Plutarch also wrote an essay, ON THE EATING OF FLESH, in which he forcefully questioned why humans felt the need to slaughter animals for luxury when the earth provides plenty of sustenance.

“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.” “The hare in its extremity cries like a child. I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual philanthropic distinctions.” “I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other…”
Henry David Thoreau – Author of Walden