Up the leash: Exploring canine handlers’ perceptions of volunteering in canine-assisted interventions

To date, research on university and college based canine-assisted interventions for post-secondary students have focused on identifying the effects of spending time with therapy dogs on the well-being of participants and, to a lesser extent, exploring the effects of canine-assisted interventions on therapy dogs as a means of safeguarding canine welfare. Little empirical attention has focused on understanding the experience of volunteer canine handlers – agents at the heart of the success of canine-assisted interventions. The aim of this exploratory research was to first capture the voice of these key stakeholders to better understand their experience as canine handler volunteers and second to provide preliminary insights into their well-being. Sixty volunteer handlers with varying volunteer experience with a canine therapy program at a mid-size Canadian university responded to a series of open-ended prompts related to their volunteer work and completed a battery of well-being measures. Qualitative findings revealed that most participants identified social benefits to volunteering for themselves (64%) and for their dog (55%). The perceived impact on students (33%) and the ability to help university students (36%) were the most rewarding aspects of volunteering. Though enticed to volunteer by qualities of the CAI program (36%), participant motivations to continue volunteering were predominantly associated with personal benefits of volunteering (44%). Most handlers reported no challenges associated with volunteering (73%) and described their dog as happy after sessions (71%). Participants commonly described good therapy dogs as relaxed, calm, and respectful (66%) and strong handlers as having good awareness of their dog (48%). Quantitative findings revealed volunteer handlers reported elevated levels of positive affect (p = < 0.001, d = 1.19), greater satisfaction with life (p = < 0.001, d = 0.85) and lower levels of avoidant attachment to their therapy dog (p = < 0.001, d = -1.16) when compared to normative samples. Implications for the governing of university and college based programs and handler well-being are discussed

When Therapy Dogs Provide Virtual Comfort: Exploring University Students’ Insights and Perspectives

With the proliferation of canine-assisted interventions and the emphasis placed on the impact of these sessions in bolstering the well-being of visitors to sessions, especially university students, it can be easy to overlook just how participating in one of these sessions is experienced by participants. Capturing participants’ experiences is important as this holds the potential to inform program design and delivery and elucidate mechanisms within the intervention that were found to be especially efficacious. Forging new empirical terrain, this study explored the insights and perceptions of 469 undergraduate students who participated in a virtual canine-assisted stress-reduction intervention at a mid-size western Canadian university. Participants were randomly assigned to synchronous or asynchronous and dog or no-dog conditions and were asked to share their views of their experience by rating statements and responding to open-ended prompts. Thematic content analysis of findings revealed that a virtual canine-assisted intervention was well received by participants. Participants in the synchronous condition with a dog reported more favorable well-being benefits, as compared with participants in the asynchronous condition with a dog and with participants in both the synchronous and asynchronous conditions without a dog. Implications of these findings hold relevance for supporting geographically remote students and students for whom attending virtual sessions is the only option given barriers preventing them from in-person attendance. Correspondingly, considerations of the role of the handler and of animal welfare are presented

PLoS Pathog

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a leading infectious cause of morbidity in immune-compromised patients. γδ T cells have been involved in the response to CMV but their role in protection has not been firmly established and their dependency on other lymphocytes has not been addressed. Using C57BL/6 αβ and/or γδ T cell-deficient mice, we here show that γδ T cells are as competent as αβ T cells to protect mice from CMV-induced death. γδ T cell-mediated protection involved control of viral load and prevented organ damage. γδ T cell recovery by bone marrow transplant or adoptive transfer experiments rescued CD3ε-/- mice from CMV-induced death confirming the protective antiviral role of γδ T cells. As observed in humans, different γδ T cell subsets were induced upon CMV challenge, which differentiated into effector memory cells. This response was observed in the liver and lungs and implicated both CD27+ and CD27- γδ T cells. NK cells were the largely preponderant producers of IFNγ and cytotoxic granules throughout the infection, suggesting that the protective role of γδ T cells did not principally rely on either of these two functions. Finally, γδ T cells were strikingly sufficient to fully protect Rag-/-γc-/- mice from death, demonstrating that they can act in the absence of B and NK cells. Altogether our results uncover an autonomous protective antiviral function of γδ T cells, and open new perspectives for the characterization of a non classical mode of action which should foster the design of new γδ T cell based therapies, especially useful in αβ T cell compromised patients

A mixed-methods examination of an on-campus canine-assisted intervention by gender: Women, men, and gender-diverse individuals’ self-reports of stress-reduction and well-being

Abstract On-campus canine-assisted interventions (CAIs) provide opportunities for college students to interact with therapy dog-handler teams and are considered a low-cost and low-barrier way for students to reduce their stress and bolster their well-being. Across studies, we see participant samples comprised predominantly of women participants. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a 20-min CAI on the well-being of women (n = 80), men (n = 54), and gender-diverse (n = 28; i.e., non-binary, genderfluid, and two-spirit) participants. Across all gender conditions, significant pre-to-post increases in well-being (i.e., campus connectedness, happiness, positive affect, or optimism) and decreases in ill-being (i.e., homesickness, loneliness, negative affect, anxiety, or stress) were found. Controlling for pre-test scores, there was no significant effect of gender on any of the well-being or ill-being. Findings corroborate previous research attesting to the efficacy of CAIs in enhancing the social and emotional well-being of students and suggest that CAIs are equally effective across participants of varied genders

Latency Entry of Herpes Simplex Virus 1 Is Determined by the Interaction of Its Genome with the Nuclear Environment

International audienceHerpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) establishes latency in trigeminal ganglia (TG) sensory neurons of infected individuals. The commitment of infected neurons toward the viral lytic or latent transcriptional program is likely to depend on both viral and cellular factors, and to differ among individual neurons. In this study, we used a mouse model of HSV-1 infection to investigate the relationship between viral genomes and the nuclear environment in terms of the establishment of latency. During acute infection, viral genomes show two major patterns: replication compartments or multiple spots distributed in the nucleoplasm (namely "multiple-acute"). Viral genomes in the "multiple-acute" pattern are systematically associated with the promyelocytic leukemia (PML) protein in structures designated viral DNA-containing PML nuclear bodies (vDCP-NBs). To investigate the viral and cellular features that favor the acquisition of the latency-associated viral genome patterns, we infected mouse primary TG neurons from wild type (wt) mice or knock-out mice for type 1 interferon (IFN) receptor with wt or a mutant HSV-1, which is unable to replicate due to the synthesis of a non-functional ICP4, the major virus transactivator. We found that the inability of the virus to initiate the lytic program combined to its inability to synthesize a functional ICP0, are the two viral features leading to the formation of vDCP-NBs. The formation of the "multiple-latency" pattern is favored by the type 1 IFN signaling pathway in the context of neurons infected by a virus able to replicate through the expression of a functional ICP4 but unable to express functional VP16 and ICP0. Analyses of TGs harvested from HSV-1 latently infected humans showed that viral genomes and PML occupy similar nuclear areas in infected neurons, eventually forming vDCP-NB-like structures. Overall our study designates PML protein and PML-NBs to be major cellular components involved in the control of HSV-1 latency, probably during the entire life of an individual