The canine program is an integral part of the CALO therapeutic model. Through Trust of Care, canines help students develop love, responsibility, and accountability through meeting the physical needs of golden retrievers. Students feed, water, groom, train, exercise, clean up after and, of course, play with canines. Students have daily walks with the canines using our secluded nature trail at the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks.
Students better understand Trust of Control when they learn how to train, discipline, lead, and regulate canine behavior. As students struggle with poor behavior from the dogs and the difficulties of training the canines, students are helped to understand frustrations their parents have similarly felt. This process lays the foundation of students feeling empathy for their parents. Empathy is the fertile soil where attachment can grow. This empathy is gained experientially, not through abstract discussion.
Studies have supported what has been observed at CALO; that canines have a calming effect on humans by regulating blood pressure and heart rate. Dysregulated students have often turned to their safe friend when having a difficult time emotionally. Additionally, golden retrievers provide safe touch through playful and loving acceptance. Students who have been inappropriately touched, abused, or never had the calming physical closeness they deserved earlier in life find safety in learning this safe touch through these amazing creatures.
Students eventually help their canine develop Trust of Self by training and leading the canines to be self-regulated and follow their adolescent leader. Typically, canines don’t respond well unless given clear instructions and communication from a care-giver. As a result, students learn healthy ways to assert themselves and how they send and receive verbal and non-verbal messages. Further, canines quickly acclimate to the rhythm of a student and match his/her energy. Thus, canines provide further feedback to students—when to be calm and in control when it is time to play.
The primary purpose of the canine program is to empower students to experience Interdependence – healthy, affectionate, reciprocal relationships. Canines help accomplish this through their instinctive ability to provide unconditional love. This provides a unique opportunity for the adolescent to practice healthy attachment with a non-threatening friend.
When students make mistakes with the canines, much like parents make errors with their children, the golden retriever forgives the student. This immediate forgiveness allows the student to see the value of being less judgmental, rigid, and forgiving of others and themselves. Most importantly, the process of reciprocity, connection-break-repair, and mutual giving and taking increases a student’s self-worth. As a result, the student is better prepared to face their emotional difficulties knowing they are loved and valued.
All CALO students will have the opportunity to bond with the canines and learn to invest in their physical and emotional needs. Some students will have the opportunity to be a foster parent for a canine and gain the valuable interpersonal and life lessons the canines offer. Other students will have the chance to adopt a canine that will eventually go home with the student at graduation, encouraging a long-term relationship. On a smaller scale, this adoption process mirrors the adoption experience that families go through when adopting a child (application, essays, home study, placement, finalization, etc.). Increased empathy is transferred to the students as they struggle through the adoption journey and realize the work their own adoptive parents endured in welcoming them as a child in their family.
Ultimately, the canine-adolescent relationship allows students to develop an understanding of parental love, something we at CALO refer to as “transferrable attachment.” The very core lesson that countless conversations and traditional talk therapy never taught a student over the years is finally discovered experientially as a student is vulnerable to a loving, safe animal — “If my parents love me more than I love my canine, I do feel safe. I really can trust that they won’t leave me, hurt me or intentionally do harm.”
