Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cognitively Informed Therapeutic Relationships Between Dogs And Humans : A Project Based Upon An Independent Investigation, Dawn Marie Colinan

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Humans and dogs have been interacting and building relationship for what is thought to be tens of thousands of years. Within the last few generations, attention has been paid to the potential therapeutic effects of this relationship. Beneficial effects have been observed for many years. Recently, criticisms in methodology from primarily qualitative and anecdotal data have suggested that evidence is weak. Ethology, the study of animal behavior, is accustomed to experimental procedures. Typically studying wild species, ethology presents a fortunate opportunity to apply its rigorous scientific methodology to the therapeutic literature being critiqued. Ethology has evolutionary theory as its foundational …