Dogs: the best friends for your mental health

For mental health patients, these visits have become the perfect antidote to calm them down, combat loneliness, boost confidence and even help them envisage a positive future in the workplace.

This is a reality every fortnight at this Costa del Sol hospital thanks to K9 Malaga’s “Dog-Assisted Interventions” project, which has received support from the ‘la Caixa’ Foundation through its call for Social Projects.

In addition to this hospital, the initiative visits dozens of locations across the province of Malaga, demonstrating that animals are also a form of ‘invisible medicine’ endorsed by professionals.

Concepción López, director of the mental health clinical management unit, and Antonio Reyes, care coordinator of the same unit, explained that this programme, started at the beginning of the year at the hospital, represents a crucial qualitative leap: "This project has been meticulously planned, with fortnightly sessions. It is allowing us to take a playful-therapeutic approach," said Reyes, highlighting the "spectacular" reception of the project.

López added that the value of the contact with the animals goes far beyond entertainment: “It creates a positive emotional environment to then be able to carry out the intensive therapies that are given in our centres. The contact with nature and with the animals helps to create an atmosphere that is very conducive to therapy".

The benefits of this initiative are immeasurable. It is within this environment, where between 45 and 50 inpatients with severe mental health disorders, who are undergoing stabilisation and resocialisation, coexist,that clinical boundaries are blurred.

The programme accommodates patients in full-time, part-time and day care. And it has strengthened the bond between healthcare staff and patients, as Antonio Reyes highlighted: “Thanks to this initiative, things have improved enormously. They are much more confident. It’s as if we’re all more relaxed and better able to receive help and provide that help.”

On the other end of the lead, Marta Sanz, an instructor and trainer at K9 Málaga, watches the results with emotion and admiration. She noted that the patients’ motivation is ”exponential”: they pay close attention to theoretical explanations about handling the dog and animal welfare guidelines, remembering everything perfectly from one session to the next.

The effect is “so magnetic” that it extends beyond the unit itself: rheumatology patients, porters and staff from other departments spontaneously join in when they see them passing by. “It’s just that dogs always attract attention,” explains Marta Sainz, director of the Social Department at K9 Málaga.

When looking for an explanation for this phenomenon, she’s quite clear: “I always say it’s because they don’t judge, that’s the key. I might have a bad day for some reason, but they don’t; they don’t care what you’re like, where you’re from, or what’s going on with you... They’ll love you and give you their all because they love people. There’s no creature more unconditionally devoted to humans than a dog.”

Behind every stroke and each smile gained in this project lies an impeccable track record spanning more than three decades in the field of animal behaviour by the K9 Málaga Dog Training School. Its team comprises accredited professionals whose official qualifications support every step of the process. Marta Sanz emphasises the importance of this rigour, which is fully in line with the Animal welfare law: “Fundación ‘la Caixa’ backed this when it was something very new, especially from a professional point of view.

Before, it was ‘well, I’ve got a very good dog and I’ll bring him along’; but these are intervention dogs, all in line with the new law and with our professional qualifications and certificates.” K9 Málaga applies “strict protocols to monitor working times, prevent the dog from becoming overwhelmed and carry out thorough ‘positivity training’ both before and after each session,” they explain.

With scientific evidence indisputably supporting the fact that interaction with animals provides a multitude of emotional benefits, the future for the project looks ambitious and hopeful. More than 100 families in the province are already benefiting from extra “family respite” time, a vital pause that allows them to improve the work-life balance of those they care for unconditionally on a daily basis.

Given the programme’s resounding success, with 80 people treated at Torremolinos Maritime Hospital alone, the hospital’s medical and nursing team is calling for it to be continued.

As Pilar Bravo and her colleagues conclude, the aim now is to put forward new projects to expand these boundaries: ‘We would like to be able to share this with other departments and other facilities so that more patients can benefit. That would be a dream come true. There is scientific evidence that spending time with an animal provides a significant emotional benefit; we are trying to apply the science in the best possible way.”