Domestic Animals healing Domestic Abuse

When Rose Terry finally resolved to leave her abusive boyfriend, she knew she'd have to live in a shelter for a few weeks before she could start life anew. She had no reservations about that.

But she anguished over Byron, the cat who had seen her through the awful times. None of her friends could take the female feline (the family was first told she was male, hence the name), and she couldn't bear the thought of placing her in an animal shelter until she got back on her feet. "I was desperate, weeping," Terry says. "She's my family."

When Terry learned one Las Vegas domestic violence safe haven, Shade Tree Shelter, had just built a pet-boarding facility on its grounds for residents' animals, "I was in such relief." Terry packed up her suitcase and her cat just before Christmas and checked in. "It's just so good to get to visit with Byron every day," says Terry, 55, who has a new job and nearly enough savings to lease an apartment and start over. "It helped so much that I didn't have to worry about her."

Domestic abuse shelters have long recognized that abused families, often kept so isolated that pets are their only friends, won't leave the abuser because they know animals left behind may be harmed as a power play or retaliation. So shelters have worked with animal-welfare groups that provide temporary pet care to ensure that everyone gets out of the situation.

Today, the emerging alternative is for domestic abuse shelters to provide on-site pet boarding. So far, fewer than a half-dozen such shelters exist, says Allie Phillips, director of public policy for the non-profit American Humane Association. But the numbers are certain to increase, as efforts are afoot on two fronts.

American Humane has just compiled and distributed a how-to guide, and Phillips' goal is that by year's end, at least 15 shelters will offer or will soon offer on-site pet boarding. Doorways for Women and Families Safehouse in Arlington, Va., will be the first to use American Humane's Pets and Women's Shelters (PAWS) Program start-up guide — officials there are in final planning to provide pet housing later this year — but Phillips has been contacted by others seeking advice.

"Shelters are overworked and underfunded, and the last thing they feel they can do is add more to their plates, even though they might be inclined toward having on-site pet care. My goal was to simplify everything, answer all the questions, debunk all the myths and walk them through the process, from how to raise money to fund it … to how to keep the people and animals safe," says Phillips, a former prosecuting attorney who was presented with hundreds of domestic violence cases and spent nearly a year putting together the guide.

Having a blueprint that reduces to minutes or hours the animal-care planning discussions that heretofore would probably have taken weeks "removes a lot of the obstacles" that have prevented many shelters from launching such a program, Phillips says.

'Enormous' need for service, comfort

Concurrent efforts are in the offing from Staci Columbo, a Las Vegas marketing executive who launched Noah's Animal House, the pet facility at Shade Tree. She's developing her own guide "to take to other communities" this year. Her goal: "at least six across the country in five years." The need, she says, "is enormous."

Noah's, which accommodates up to 15 cats and 18 dogs, has drawn so many pet-owning families since its opening in October that it is full most of the time. Expansion plans already are being discussed.

Some abuse victims are satisfied with placing their pets temporarily in an animal shelter. But there are downsides: Sometimes the shelter is full, and some animals don't adapt well to that environment. And often, the already-stressed families are further troubled by their pets' absence, and they're not allowed to visit the animal for fear the abuser might track them there, putting people and animals at risk.

"When a person is in the midst of nothing familiar, the comfort a pet can provide is enormous," Phillips says.

"We had the experience with several women who would arrive with a garbage bag full of possessions and a pet in tow and refuse to check in when they learned that we would find a safe place for the animal, but it couldn't stay here with them," Columbo says. "We've known of women who lived in their cars so they could keep their pets with them and women who stayed in a shelter but kept their pet in the car parked on the street, and, of course, women who wouldn't leave their abuser because of concern for the safety of their animals. Each situation like this tore your heart out."

Benefits vs. concerns

Still, many say there are good reasons for not housing pets in domestic violence shelters — concerns about allergies, noise and bites; debates about whether pets on the grounds may put everyone at risk by attracting the spurned partner; and worries that a pet's presence may prevent a victim from focusing on addressing her own issues.

Marci Sanders, director of the Shelter for Abused Women & Children in Naples, Fla., says her staff had to consider all those questions when contemplating providing on-site care for residents' pets. But they moved ahead five years ago, "and the benefits so outweigh the negatives," she says. It costs less than $1,000 a year to care for about 100 pets annually in crates in an out-of-the-way room. And although "we've had a dog that dug holes in the yard, and one that barked for a while," she says, "in the big picture that is nothing."

Phillips hopes that within 10 years, "these kinds of arrangements will be commonplace." She placed a petition seeking support of on-site pet facilities at domestic abuse shelters online Feb. 23 at thepetitionsite.com; it has attracted more than 18,000 comments.

Dogs Sniff Out Hypoglycemia

Already known for their capability of leading the blind, alerting the deaf, and helping the physically disabled with daily tasks, dogs may also prove helpful in maintaining the blood sugar levels of diabetics.

This suggestion comes from researchers at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, who are looking for evidence to verify whether dogs can reliably detect dangerous blood sugar level drops in diabetics.

"Anecdotal reports suggest that some dogs can perform early warning of hypoglycemia by using their sense of smell to 'sniff out' if their owner's blood sugar levels are dropping," Live Science quoted lead researcher and psychology professor Deborah Wells as saying.

Diabetics have to test their blood glucose levels on a regular basis to avoid the peaks and valleys that can result in organ failure.

Some organizations in the US train dogs to detect low glucose levels. Mark Ruefenacht, the founder of Dogs for Diabetics in Concord, California, says that dogs that successfully complete training can detect low glucose levels with 90 per cent accuracy.

However, it is still unclear what the canines notice when a person experiences a blood sugar low is still a mystery, Ruefenacht admits.

"We just haven't come up with the right answers. Every time we think we have the answer, we find that we don't," he said.

Larry Myers, a veterinarian and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, says that scientists are still investigating whether dogs can truly detect low blood sugar levels. He, however, agrees that it is a possibility worth exploring.

The expert, who has trained dogs to detect everything from drugs to agricultural pests for 25 years, points out that dogs olfactory ability are not universally sensitive to all chemicals.

"Do hypoglycemic individuals, in fact, emit an odor that is characteristic? I don't know, and I don't think anybody does know right now," he said.

Myers suggests that a possibility other than scent may perhaps be an ability in dogs to notice extremely subtle physiological changes in their human companion, which the canines are believed to use for seizure detection.

"It turns out what the dogs are really sensitive to is subtle changes in behavior of the individuals just prior to seizing. It's more of a fact that dogs are very, very, very observant of human behaviour," Myers said.

Dogs Helping Autistic Children

Matthew Plunk pulls away from Ajax but can't go more than 2 1/2 feet, the length of the tethering strap securing him to the Great Pyrenees-boxer mix.

This, his parents say, is just one of the benefits of having an assistive dog to help their mildly autistic son navigate not just their Norcross home but the world outside.

Before they got Ajax, Jennifer Plunk said, Matthew was prone to darting away, especially if he became frightened or upset. And when he was in the middle of a meltdown, behavior common in children suffering from Asperger's syndrome such as Matthew, he was inconsolable.

Not with Ajax. He's trained to recognize the situation, and he moves in to nuzzle 7-year-old Matthew to avert the behavior.

Matthew was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 3. He was socially aloof and moved constantly, Plunk said. When the family ventured away from their home, people stared at him, and Plunk imagined they saw just another over-indulged brat — and a mother badly in need of parenting classes.

Now people see Ajax tethered to her son and are less judgmental and more empathetic, she said. When she saw a news special about assistive dogs, she knew then that "this could be something huge for Matthew."

Within months of receiving Ajax last year, Plunk said, Matthew started to change.

"He's more calm and comfortable in his skin," she said. "He's interested in what's going on around him, more in tune with people."

Kelly Martin hopes her son Carter can be so lucky. She believes an assistive dog could help him live a more regular life, too.

That freedom, however, comes with a $13,000 price tag, the price charged by 4 Paws for Ability. The Ohio-based nonprofit, where the Plunks got Ajax, trains service dogs for children and adults with various disabilities.

"It would be his own personal guide into this crazy world we live in," Martin said. "This dog will give Carter and my family back a lot of freedoms that we've had to forgo because it is too hard for Carter to do normal things."