the pandemic hasnt just made people conscious of their physical well being but it has also highlighted how important it is take care of ones mental health conversations around mental health have been on a rise as more and more people seek help for various mental health issues while online therapy sessions and other tools have helped many to get through this tough time animal assisted therapy is also becoming popular now although not a new concept animal assisted therapy has found more takers now as more people find it difficult to cope with the new realities of life therapy on four legsthe concept of animal assisted therapy is a fairly new concept in gujarat dog behaviourist and trainer salomi gupte is associated with the an animal assisted therapy group in ahmedabad she shares we are the first one to have started this in gujarat our aim is to make people realise how therapeutic dogs can be at our organisation we have four dogs who have received special therapy training we have visited corporate offices and ngos where we have interacted with children with special needs spending time with the dogs has many therapeutic advantages and sometimes just being around them helps in dissipating stress salomi adds that there has been an increase in the number of people seeking animal assisted therapy after the lockdown after the lockdown we are seeing more people coming in for our comfort dog program specially adults who come and spend time with our dogs to feel bettertherapy dogs require special training and many dog behaviourists and trainers have undergone special training to help their dogs become therapy dogs shirin merchant a dog behaviourist and trainer from mumbai trains dog owners and trainers who in turn train their dogs to become therapy dogs there are few criterion that need to be followed when it comes to selecting dogs for therapy training the dog should be affectionate caring and should genuinely enjoy the company of people a lot of times people are under the misconception that a loving dog can qualify to be a therapy dog however having just a tolerance for human attention is not enough the dog has to enjoy the attention and be able to handle stressful situations too also it is important that the trainer and the dog both qualify together as a team to offer therapy there are certain specific training that are given to such dogs and it includes learning certain mannerisms and following a code of ethics too now that the physical training is not possible due to the pandemic online training sessions have become relevant and popular explains shirin clinical psychologists and therapists often work closely with dog trainers in animal assisted therapy ruwab khemchandani is a clinical psychologist who also works at an animal assisted therapy group she shares my role as an animal assisted therapist is to facilitate the bond between the client and the therapy dog because the success of aat depends on it in