The hypothesis is that dogs have positive effects on a person’s overall mood. Dogs overall are in a state of good mood when around people and also, canines are good at being a distraction to humans and are very social, wanting to interact with people. Dogs can have high energy but are also very comforting when needed, and people like to match the energy around them. The hypothesis is that interacting with a dog will make people match the energy of the dog and end up improving their mood. 

 

 

What is mental health?

Mental health is the emotional state of a person and their well-being. It affects how we feel, interact, and act towards others. Mental health helps us be social with others, helps us do everyday things, and focus much better. Mental health is responsible for helping us make friends, be connected with our community, learn how to respect and love ourselves, and plan and organize our everyday tasks to be easier.

Why mental health and well-being is important 

Mental health has a huge effect on everyday life, and it determines how we interact with the environment, people, and animals. It also can affect if you can get a job. For example, if someone sees that you are not good at handling stress and high demand, they may not be offered a job, making it hard to find a job. Having self love and respect is also really important so if someone has poor mental health, they may hurt their own feelings and constantly feel negative intense emotions. Good mental health makes it easier to cope with situations and easier to control emotions, which is why mental health should be prioritized.

Poor mental health VS balanced mental health

• Poor mental health is unhealthy, or unbalanced mental well-being. Poor mental health has many effects on your daily life. The diagram showcases multiple cons to having poor mental health. Having poor mental health is truly unhealthy for you mentally because you are not in the right headspace to work efficiently or to make responsible decisions. 

• Balanced mental health is the opposite of poor mental health. Most people strive for balanced mental health because it is really important to be balanced with mental health, Meaning that all of the benefits listed in the picture are possible 

• balanced mental health won't always be the case. That is for good reason though, because everyone experiences changes in their mood sometimes, and sometimes feeling poorly. But feeling your feelings does not mean you have poor mental health, it's actually really normal.

• This diagram compares balanced to not balanced mental health to represent how two different types of mental health are, and how that impacts you.

• 

“Balanced mental health”

“Balanced mental” health is used because there is no such thing as perfect mental health. People may take the word “Good” as you never have any other emotion than happiness, and that's not normal. It is super normal to feel sad, angry, or scared without having poor mental health. It is always good to feel your emotions, so let your emotions be emotions. You can feel your emotions, but keep in mind that you also need to control your emotions in an appropriate way.

 What is Social support? 

Social support is assistance from a person. Social support is a type of psychological support that will help you find resources to cope with issues you are having, or someone who can give you feedback and some solutions to your issue.

Why is social support important? 

Social support is important because it helps us understand emotions, and cope with them. Social support can relieve stress by using a given strategy to cope with problems. Social support really benefits mental health and well-being because, social support is a tool a lot of people use to cope with emotions and stress.

Possible outcomes if social support did not exist

If social support did not exist humanity would be tremendously affected because every person needs social support in a different way to support their needs. If social support did not exist nobody would get that support needed, which would mean that social interactions would most likely go down because of the way that society is built. Technology is becoming big meaning there is less and less social interactions leading to the possible out come that, people might lose that skill land this is an ongoing problem.

What is emotional support?

Emotional support is a person who is going to listen to you and give you sympathy and show you they are listening. Someone giving emotional support will not give any feedback, they are just giving you support and showing you that you can trust them, they are there for you for when you crash and there ready to hold you and let you cry on their shoulder.

What is emotional support?

Emotional support is a person who is going to listen to you and give you sympathy and show you they are listening. Someone giving emotional support will not give any feedback, they are just giving you support and showing you that you can trust them, they are there for you for when you crash and there ready to hold you and let you cry on their shoulder.

Why is Emotional support so important?

Emotional support is so important because sometimes you really do not need a solution, you just need to talk about it to someone and feel that they support you. Emotional support is so useful in situations in the moment when you just need to cry and hug someone. Social support is great, but sometimes people need a specific type of social support like emotional support in the moment for most people.

Emotional support VS Social support

Emotional support- Emotional support is where you are not there to fix an issue, you are there to talk to someone so they can feel not alone. It is nice to let it out and talk to someone. Anyone can give emotional support, which is nice because then you do not have to pay for therapy sessions or have someone you may not trust as much as your best friend or family member etc.

Social support-Social support sometimes looks like someone helping to fix a problem. Social support may look like feedback on how to act towards a person, or solve a problem. Social support is not a place to just talk and have someone listen to you, it is where someone giving that support wants your problem solved. These two very different ways of support share many benefits! Both of these are really awesome and helpful.

 

Common Strategies

Common strategies mean that a lot of people use them more than other strategies. I'm going to share the most common ones and why they are so common!

Breathing- There are a lot of breathing exercises and they are so simple and you do not need any items to do it.

Music - Listening to music gets your mind off of what is happening, and the music might relax you. People really like music so that adds to it!

Distraction- Distraction is one of my favorite ones because it works really well because when you are just doom spiraling about your issue, this doom spiral makes the issue a lot worse. Also, distraction is easy on the go because you again do not need anything to do this coping strategy.

Eat food- When you are hungry everything escalates in your head. Most people feel way better after eating!

Drink water- This is one of the most common ones because I think drinking water is just something else to focus on and is refreshing. Drinking water also re-hydrates you if you are upset.

The Frontal Lobes

The frontal lobes are considered to be the center of emotions. This means that the frontal lobes take part in how you react to situations and the way you feel. The frontal lobes are located at the front of the brain behind your forehead. The frontal lobes are responsible for many functions. These functions include, organization, planning skills, self control, social interactions, empathy, personality, emotions, and motor functions. The frontal lobe is also responsible for important psychological skills such as judgment, problem solving, memory, language, responsible decisions, and coping with emotions.

Benefits of dogs being in therapy

Social interactions - in therapy sessions you are interacting with people as you are talking with them about whatever needs to be talked about, but even if you are not talking you're still socially interacting just with a dog and this can help!

Stress reduction - sometimes going to a therapy session can be a little bit stressful and scary. The stress can really depend on the person and the situation, but dogs have some type of spark and can really relax some people at certain times.

Comfort and support- Dogs can be comforting and loving showing support and can make you feel more relaxed, safe, and comfortable to express yourself better!

Enjoyment - Some people really like dogs and enjoy being around them and interacting with them.

Non verbal communication - Dogs have a simple understanding of body language and they can provide support and comfort during times when they can tell you are struggling.

Emotional support - Dogs are great at providing emotional support and solidarity, they are perfect for that and can help you regulate your emotions better and get back to an appropriate emotion level.

Negative Effects of Dogs Being in Therapy

Allergies- allergies being so common have eliminated dogs from being a part of most therapy sessions. Allergies are important and therapy is meant to be a safe place and someone may not feel as safe as they should if they know there are dogs and that they are allergic to them.

Rules- Rules are rules and need to be followed and some places do not allow dogs inside to keep everyone safe so people are comfortable and safe, sometimes it is just not worth taking the risk

Unpredictable behaviours- Dogs can be very unpredictable because they are like any other animal, and they need to be treated with cautiousness.

Overwhelmed dogs- Dogs can get overwhelmed sometimes causing them to possibly be unpredictable and hurt someone.

Distracting- Dogs can take away from the lesson, or conversation going on making it hard to concentrate and maintain a growth mindset.

Discomfort- some people are scared of dogs or they may feel a little intimidated by the dog and therapy is like a consensus meaning everyone has to agree.

Dogs in therapy

Dogs are in therapy across Alberta just not too often, certainly not often enough. That is because there is not enough research behind it to support many service animals and emotional support animals being brought into sessions and this is a problem! Research should be done to see if dogs in therapy would be beneficial for mental health.

Why should dogs be brought into therapy sessions more often?

Dogs have an impact on humans in multiple ways, but they can have a negative or positive effect if they are not used as a proper resource. If people are given the option as they should than they will be mostly [positive with risks but the people who decided to do it are now doing it at there own risk].

Dogs in social and emotional support

Emotional support dogs; provide comfort and companionship to the dog owner, but are not trained to do specific tasks that assist a disability

Emotional support dogs are meant to provide comfort and support during any time needed. They are not trained to do specific things like a therapy dog for special needs. Emotional support animals don't get any Treatment to be allowed in to other places because some places may think that is a pet.

Social support dogs are there to help the public. If you go to the airport, you might see a dog that has a vest saying “pet me” this means that it is a dog meant for people who are scared to fly to help them calm and control their emotions. Dogs in social support are not seen often and could definitely be brought into helping mental health way more!

This projects impact on humanity

This project has an effect on humanity to open up the door for dogs as another resource for humans to acknowledge and use! This project could benefit a lot of people and their mental health. If someone found this experiment and thought it was really cool they might share that information and people may even start interacting with dogs a little bit more. A small act makes a big difference! People might start having improved moods meaning a little bit less people might fight with each other. It wouldn't make a big difference, maybe not even noticeable to the average person but if people started using knowledge and sharing it, it might spread helping humanity’s mental health. I think of it like a rumor in a school!

Community interaction & connection

I connected with some psychologists that work with children! I also have some University students working on their PHD or Masters degree in psychology as participants that may help them understand how to help the children they work with. They participated in my project and I'm very excited about it! I also reached out to the program called B.A.R.K. and asked them and Dr. Benfit if there was anything I should research specifically about dogs to support my project. They responded and gave me some articles and a lovely response which helped me understand my research and how to help mental health.

B.A.R.K

B.A.R.K. -B.A.R.K. is a therapy session program that is designed to reduce stress, anxiety, and to improve your overall well being. This was done by having a session with a dog and you get to hangout with a dog and a handler for however long you needed. The dogs are trained and have handlers to help the dogs out when needed. There are currently 60 therapy dogs that are volunteering right now and multiple alumni dogs! B.A.R.K. does walk-in sessions designed for students to just drop in and hangout with the dogs for as long as they needed! B.A.R.K. is located at the University of British Columbia.

The B.A.R.K. Pilot Program

The pilot program was an online program designed to provide emotional support and companionship over a video that was filmed and then put online. It was created in 2020 to support people during COVID-19 19 as that can be very stressful too! There were thirteen handlers and their therapy dogs who filmed videos!  These videos were 5 minutes long and reduced anxiety, stress, and loneliness.

Research & impact on university students

The B.A.R.K. team did some studies over the course of three semesters in 2013 to 2014. How it worked was students would tell the B.A.R.K. team how they were feeling stress wise and stress levels were fairly high having exams coming up. There was a huge impact overall coming from a rating scale from 1-5 with 1 being totally not stressed and 5 being incredibly stressed. The average level of stress before the B.A.R.K. program was 4.47 later being reduced to the average of 2.73 using the same type of scale to assess their feelings. These sessions do not have a limit, University students are able to stay as long as they want until they feel less stressed. The average amount of time was 35 minutes with the dogs!

 

 

Variables

Variables in this project are:

Mood, activity with a dog, and the time spent in the activity with the dog. Mood was measured using an emoji based Likert scale ratings from 1-6 to describe overall mood from sad to happy with 1 being very sad, 2 being sad, 3 being nuetural, 4 being happy, 5 being , and 6 being overjoyed. The activity with a dog was a choice of either cuddling or walking the dog, and the time spent doing the activity with a dog was measured using minutes.

 

 

 

 

Procedure

Participants (n=10) recorded their mood before and after an activity with their dog (either cuddling or taking their dog for a walk). They will also report how long they spent doing the activity with their dog. This experiment will take place over seven days with participants reporting their mood before and after spending time with their dog for seven days. All information will be collected online using an anonymous google doc and will be stored confidentially. Changes in mood from before to after spending time with their dog will be measured to see if time spent with a dog helps their mood and mental wellbeing. The experiment takes 7 days to do with the minimum of spending at least 5 minutes with a dog to record it.

 

An average before score was calculated for each person and an average after score. Then each participant’s average before score and after score were then also averaged to see if there was a change in mood after participating in a dog activity on average across the whole sample.

 

 

Observations

First, I noticed trends for each person that were different. Before doing the dog activity people on average had a mood of a 3, which meant neutral and after the dog activity there was an average mood score of 4.3 wich ment its between happy and very happy. So in total, there was a 1.3 improvement in mood after spending time with a dog. But each person was a little bit different. Some people had a big improvement in their mood on average after spending time with their dog, and some people had a little improvement. One person had a worse mood on average after spending time with their dog.

 

 

ANALYSES

My observations showed that on average mood got better after doing one of the assigned activities with the dog. With a 1.3 average improvement, meaning there is an improvement in mood by spending time with a dog. I believe there is an improvement because the participant got distracted a little bit from something ongoing in their head. There was something very interesting that happened: children had a bigger increase of mood than adults did. I think children have a bigger increase in mood than adults because they get distracted easier than adults as their brains and skills aren’t fully developed as most adults have fully developed brains and foundational skills. I think my hypothesis is correct: I hypothesized that dogs can improve overall mood by distracting the person from their issue that was preventing them from feeling overjoyed or somewhat happy. 

One part of the hypothesis is that people may match the energy of the dog and that could help improve their mood, but that was not observed. Instead, I believe these results show that people were distracted or they were improved in their mood after seeing their dog. 

One participant saw a decrease in mood which was the opposite of my hypothesis. This may be because they did not have a good relationship with their dog, or the dog was not in a good mood and may have been overwhelmed since he was 14 years old (which is very old for a dog). 

Some participants did not see a big increase in their mood, and I think this may be because they started out already very happy and in a good mood so their change was not as big as the ones who started out in worse moods. 

 

CONCLUSION

Overall, spending time with dogs did distract the participants from intense emotions, and many said that they felt better as the week went on. The incorrect part of my hypothesis was that the participants would try to match the energy of the dog bringing their mood up but there was no evidence to prove that right, so it is false for now and a future project may look at this in more detail. I think that this experiment can impact society because, it has good evidence and can some day be used as a tool for emotional and social support. I think with this new research and knowledge that dogs can help mood, dogs can be brought into therapy and receive recognition much more now that there is evidence supporting this theory. I think dogs can be used as a tool for emotional and support systems, but they should still follow rules and regulations like wavers, risks, and precautions, and therapists should make sure that the participant is ok with the decision of a dog being brought into the therapy session. I think dogs do benefit mood, but should not be relied on as they are also animals and experience emotions as well, so that should be kept in mind.

 

Application

This project can improve overall mental well-being. This project provides data and research to answer my question and hypothesis: whether social support from dogs can improve mood. This project can improve overall mental well-being as a whole by providing information to a theory proving it incorrect or correct. This provides scientific data supporting that spending time with a dog improves overall mood and mental well-being and can now be a new way to help people.

 

There are some sources of error in this study that could have had an impact on the results. First, participants may not have had a good relationship with their dog and this made their mood worse. Also, participants may be overwhelmed by a dog and this would not help their mood. Participants also may not have understood the instructions or had completed the survey incorrectly, or may have exaggerated their answers. Next, the dogs used in the study may have been overwhelmed and that could have possible negative effects on the dog and the person. Also sometimes the weather may have made it so that they could not go on a walk. The dog may have wanted to be alone and not cuddle or walk when the participant wanted to, or the participant may have been afraid of dogs. Some participants dropped out and did not complete all seven days. Also there were a mix of children and adults and so it is not known if it was a bigger or lesser improvement based on their age. Also the age of the dog may have impacted how the person interacted with the dog. Also people’s personalities might be different and have different impacts. Overall, there is a lot of possible human error, the results really depended on the current relationship with the dog, personality, age, etc. and so future studies should take these things into consideration.

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I acknowledge all the participants, as well as their dogs, for participating in my study to contribute to scientific understanding. I will also acknowledge the B.A.R.K. team for providing resources as well as a clear understanding of what they research and what they do. I also thank my teacher for encouraging me not to give up when I faced great challenges and supporting me all the way through, as well as my mom for supporting me and encouraging me to push myself to my best capabilities.