Certified Street Dog 'Safiş' Advances Toward Becoming a Therapy Dog

The project "Training Street Dogs, Treating Our Patients," approved by the Ministry of Interior, has become a beacon of hope for street dogs. Street dogs receiving therapy dog training under the project are being prepared for therapeutic roles with cancer patients, individuals with autism, dementia patients, schizophrenia patients, elderly care homes, child welfare institutions, and many other settings.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eda Küçüktülü, the project developer and Radiation Oncology Specialist, stated: "Therapy dogs work very well with cancer patients abroad. During these sessions, dogs are brought to patients and it is noticed that patients feel much better. In fact, when leaving the hospital, even patients expected to have long survival periods adopt the dogs and leave with them. After seeing these examples from Italy, I realized nothing like this had been done in our country. That's why we said 'why shouldn't we do it in our country' and started working on it. We completed our study with cancer patients in Istanbul. We arranged therapy dog visits before patients started treatment. With some of our radiotherapy devices, our patients feel very stressed before entering treatment. Some even want to take tranquilizers before entering the device. Some cannot enter at all. But when we had patients visit with therapy dogs, we saw that none of our patients required medication or said 'I won't have treatment,' and everyone was very happy. In fact, some of our patients told us during the study, 'I'm no longer taking my blood pressure medication.' When that happened, we understood stress-related hypertension had developed. Of course, without statistical backing, we couldn't discuss this scientifically. But when we looked at our preliminary results, we noticed our patients reduced their diastolic, or what people call lower blood pressure. Therefore, dogs have physiological effects beyond providing happiness. On the other hand, many people now have serious antidepressant habits or try to solve problems by taking serotonin, and some even recommend it to each other. However, if we communicate with these animals, we wouldn't unnecessarily take medication and burden our livers. A thesis study conducted in Africa showed that interaction with animals directly increases serotonin in our blood."

Trained street dogs can produce the same effects as other therapy dogs!
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eda Küçüktülü stated: "Since our country doesn't have an established therapy dog concept like abroad, we evaluated the dogs participating in our study through special video recordings with a hospital environment setup prepared by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Etkin Şafak at Ankara University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. While doing these studies, I thought why not do this with street dogs and presented the project to my colleagues. We are gradually establishing our standards together as a team, under the leadership of Prof. Şafak at Ankara University. Safiye (Safiş) started training and successfully passed the Social Dog Examination. The training of 9 other dogs including Dost in Ankara is continuing. Once they pass the Social Dog Examination, the test results will be sent to the Ministry of Interior. After that, these dogs will be placed in public service to bring happiness to people in our country. Through these studies, we have seen that trained street dogs can produce the same therapeutic effects as therapy dogs."

Street dogs with the right temperament can readily become therapy dogs.

Cihan Akın, a dog trainer from Istanbul contributing to training street dogs for therapy dog work, said: "Rather than distinguishing between street dogs and purebred dogs, we can determine which dog is suitable for which task, and after correct character and temperament tests, we can responsibly place them as owners. What is important in our therapy dog project is that the dog has a good temperament, works cooperatively with people, is social, and has the characteristics of forming social relationships with all types of animals. Dogs like Labradors, Golden Retrievers, and Poodles may come to the forefront when we look at the world. But with Prof. Eda's foresight, we adopted Safiş. Safiş is a mixed breed, but a dog with the right temperament. With Mocha, we worked extensively on therapy dogs for years and provided extensive training. We will now give Safiş the same training. We started with obedience training. It's been a few months since we began. In a few months, we saw that she was compatible in social life, peaceable with people, and full of affection toward other animals. She especially has a very good relationship with children. She is a very loving animal. Last week she successfully passed the Social Dog Examination."

Under the "Training Street Dogs, Treating Our Patients" project, street dog training is continuing in Istanbul under Cihan Akın and in Ankara under Kemal Can Oral of Gölbaşı Dog Art Academy, with the guidance of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Etkin Şafak from Ankara University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.