The successful therapy dog: An insight through a Delphi consultation survey among Italian experts

Animal assisted interventions (AAI) refer to planned and structured interactions between humans and animals managed by a multidisciplinary team. The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is the most involved species in this kind of programs. Even though, it is agreed worldwide that these animals should fulfil some requirements, their selection is still based on general principles and each organization gives its own interpretation. Some selection protocols were set up in the past, but they found little application in practice among professionals. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the phenomenon is needed. Our study aims to build consensus about features that make a therapy dog successful in AAI settings among Italian professionals that work in the AAI field. A three-round Delphi process was set up to get closer to this goal. All Delphi exercises were conducted using online questionnaires distributed to professionals. As a first step, respondents were asked to answer an open-ended question, asking what defining features a therapy dog should have to be eligible in most dog-assisted intervention programs, while in subsequent rounds participants rated to what extent characteristics resulting from round 1 are desirable/undesirable for a therapy dog. Thirty-three professionals responded to all rounds. The Delphi study allowed us to identify 55 defining features of a therapy dog. Among them, 16 features resulted “very desirable” with expert consensus and they all relate to dog resilience, dog emotional balance, dog willingness to collaborate with both handler and users/patients and dog communication skills. Moreover, we noticed that respondents often assign human qualities onto the animal showing anthropomorphism attitude. We concluded that a selection of therapy dog should not consider only exclusion criteria and role-playing, but their communication skills, willingness to engage, resilience and emotional balance should also be assessed. Further studies are needed to investigate the link between our results and the successful and reliable involvement of dogs in most settings of animal assisted interventions. However, our findings provided a baseline for future research that started from the professionals’ point of view with a participatory approach.