Four-legged therapists

From her bed nestled beneath a window in a Chico office, Terra began to whimper, glancing at her owner worriedly.

“Honey, you’re OK,” Kim Covington said lovingly to her 10-year-old companion, grabbing a thick blanket and covering all but the canine’s head. Terra immediately relaxed, then started to snooze.

“She has a quirk,” Covington explained; sometimes the Rhodesian Ridgeback has to be all covered up to feel relaxed.

Terra is more than a source of comfort and companionship for Covington—she works as a therapy animal at Covington’s marriage and family therapy practice. The duo help clients process their emotions and make breakthroughs during sessions.

“This [moment] could even be a thing of discussion as well,” Covington continued excitedly. Terra’s reactions can lead to questions such as, “What do you do when you’re crying?” and “What helps you feel more comfortable?”

Covington, who’s had her private practice for seven years, and Terra became certified for pet-assisted therapy in 2010 through Pet Partners—an organization that delivers standardized training for volunteers and professionals.

“A lot of people with trauma or anxiety primarily have been harmed by humans,” she said. “Feeling a connection with safety and unconditional love and acceptance can feel really good.”

It can be especially helpful for kids, who typically don’t want to sit on a couch and talk about how they feel, Covington said. Sometimes they’ll take Terra for a walk and her young clients will be in charge of Terra’s leash. It becomes an exercise in observation and modeling healthy interactions.

“Terra sometimes hides under the desk if she doesn’t really like what’s going on with a client, or sometimes, in family sessions, there’s a lot of discussion, loud voices,” Covington continued. “You can use a dog as a metaphor to [ask], ‘OK, what do you think’s happening with her? Are there other ways that other people might respond to you like Terra does?’”

Terra is getting ready to retire, but Covington has Chloe the mini Aussie-doodle in training to take her place next year.

Covington isn’t the sole provider of animal-assisted therapy in Butte County.

Enloe Medical Center and Butte Humane Society both sponsor programs. Through Enloe’s Pets Assisting With Service (PAWS), Pet Partners-certified volunteer handlers and animals provide comfort to patients. Butte Humane Society’s Animal Assisted Wellness volunteers visit nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.

Covington also integrates horses into her practice through equine-assisted therapy.

She started riding, competing and training with horses when she was 6, but the sessions she offers are not about horsemanship, but about creating awareness.

“How the client shows up and interacts with the horse is how they show up to other situations in their life,” said Covington, who has been certified through the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association since 2001.

Similarly, Chico therapist Pat Pearson has been practicing for three years, with her certification through the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International.

Pearson works with equine specialist Sid McBride, offering eight 50-minute sessions per week in Oroville. They have seven horses—from a 32-inch tall miniature horse to a massive draft horse that can pull a wagon. Pearson also has a long history with horses, having grown up with ponies in her backyard in Paradise.

Pearson said she always is touched by an activity in which her clients will walk with a horse in a pasture, clearing out 15 to 20 small balls with words written on them—such as “sad,” “frustrated,” “happy” and “excitement.” The client chooses which balls they are going to carry and which they will place in a bag carried by the horse.

“Usually the words the horse carries are big burdens for them,” Pearson explained. “It’s too much for them to carry on their own.”

In a memorable session, one client was trying to carry so many balls on their own that the balls kept falling to the ground.

“It took them a while, and then they realized, My horse can help me,” Pearson said. “For that person, in their life, asking for help was something they never did. Allowing the horse to be helpful, and [to] be able to unload those balls and have the horse carry them for them, they felt better.”

Both therapists spoke of how horses can help clients cement successful coping techniques because they actively are put to the test in the field with the horse.

“What makes therapy out at the barn so magical is that often kids [who] have trauma or anxiety or depression, it’s hard for them to talk to people, but they’ll tell their horse a lot,” Pearson said. “And they kind of forget the therapist is standing there.”

Recently, a horse from Canada that’s new to Pearson’s practice produced a therapeutic moment. A client who had been adopted talked about what was important for the horse to know about its new family; Pearson said they were “able just to give some really good insight on what was going on for them because they were sharing it about the horse.”

The therapists agreed that the expense of caring for horses likely is a significant barrier when it comes to the prevalence of equine-assisted therapy practices, and that more qualified providers definitely are needed when it comes to the mental health focus. Both of their practices are full.

During equine therapy, Covington said, clients “get to come up with their own ideas, which is self-empowering. They really have to think and come up with solutions.”

For Pearson, the method is “another beautiful way of being able to be with people and help them heal.”