The use of animal-assisted therapy in psychiatric nursing: the story of Timmy and Buddy

A therapy session gone wrong and a therapy dog in training having a bad day combined to remind those of us who work daily with people who have chronic, severe mental illnesses that our idea of what is successful is not always true. This is the story of how a tiny dog acting in a nontherapeutic way helped a young man learn how to get along better with other human beings, as well as how a nurse who thought she knew better learned a lesson about conflict resolution in human-animal relationships.