TOKYO: Animal therapy, designed to heal people through contact with animals, is spreading in Japan amid the COVID-19 crisis.

A university in Tokyo has hosted a session to introduce therapy dogs to students and alleviate their loneliness attributed to the prolonged coronavirus crisis, while facilities for disabled people are developing environments that allow residents to live with animals.

On the campus of Showa Women’s University in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, in-person classes have resumed following the full lifting of the government’s COVID-19 state of emergency at the end of September.

“I feel at ease,” Manami Ubukata, 22, said with a smile as she rubbed the back of Eito, a therapy dog, at a hands-on session with such animals on Oct. 21.

Her university life has greatly changed following the spread of the virus.

“The number of classes fell after I became a senior, and I could not meet friends in online lectures,” Ubukata said.

Additionally, it was tough that she was unable to return to her parents’ home in the Tohoku northeastern Japan region to meet her beloved cat there, she said.

The university organized the animal therapy session after a number of students told a consultation center that they have been increasingly isolated.

The Animal Therapy Kokoro Support Association, a general incorporated association based in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, dispatched animals to the event.

The association train rescued dogs and other animals and dispatch them to organizations including companies, according to Kuniko Kusakabe, head of the association.

With the significance of workers’ mental health increasingly emphasized, Kusakabe said, “We want companies that believe (therapy animals) are unnecessary to have interest.”

At a facility for people with disabilities based in the northeastern Japan city of Akita, five women live with a one-year-old cat, Miichan.

“We feel relaxed and a happy mood is created,” Ryuji Tanaka, manager of the facility, said of the residents looking at Miichan’s sleeping face and smiling while playing with the cat.

Tokyo-based Anispi Holdings Inc., which operates facilities for disabled people across the country, including the one in Akita, started accepting rescued dogs and cats three years ago and allowed them to live at some 600 of its facilities.

Miichan, once neglected, has been protected by an animal care center.

Hideaki Fujita, president at Anispi Holdings, said, “We hope that it will become normal for people, even with disabilities, to live with animals.”

The Japanese Animal Hospital Association, a public interest incorporated association in Tokyo, has been dispatching therapy dogs since 1986. It dispatches such animals around 1,000 times annually.

“We sometimes have to decline requests due to shortages of animals and volunteers,” an official at the association said.

The Environment Ministry is paying attention to animal therapy initiatives as they may reduce the number of animals being culled.

With the ministry looking at conducting a survey to confirm the actual situation next fiscal year, rescued dogs and other animals are likely to have opportunities to play active roles.

JIJI Press