By Greg Basky for SHRF
In 2013 USask sociologist Dr. Colleen Dell was due for a research sabbatical and was casting around for ideas on what she should focus on. Dr. Dell – this year’s recipient of the SHRF Achievement Award – was working primarily on addictions research at the time and shared with a friend that she was frustrated with how little progress was being made in the field.
“I felt like I was in a recurring dream, and in some ways still do, with advancements and then continual setbacks,” says Dell. She was sure there must be another way for her to make a difference with her work, and that might be a little more energizing. Dell’s friend suggested she should study something related that she loves. “And I said, ‘I love my dogs,” she recalls with a chuckle. “So I went home and googled “dog and addiction” and I could only find one study at the time.”
In short order, she and her bulldog Anne-Belle had successfully completed the requirements to become a certified St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog team. “I said to myself, ‘Okay, if my community-based research is going to be in close partnership with animals and dogs in particular, how am I gonna do this?” So the pair embarked on a road trip to Illinois for a two-week course on dog psychology, an experience that she says shifted her mindset from “pet owner” to someone cohabitating with a sentient being, a companion animal.
The training, and resulting paradigm shift, set Dell on a new research path, exploring the role of animals in human health. And over the past decade, she has established herself as a leading researcher – nationally and internationally – in the field of animal-assisted interventions, demonstrating the benefits that animals can bring to people in need of support and connection – whether that’s a frightened individual in a hospital emergency department, a senior nearing end of life in a long-term care facility, or a veteran facing substance use challenges.
In 2007 Dell moved to Saskatchewan from Ottawa, where she had held an academic position jointly at Carleton University and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA). She had a research background in substance use and Indigenous people’s health – specifically women’s journeys from addiction to wellness. Dell says growing up in Winnipeg’s north end influenced her decision to focus on corrections and social justice in her career – issues she saw the troubling impacts of daily.
She came to this province to take up the position as provincial Research Chair in Substance Abuse. The work, she says, was a very good fit for her, as it provided the opportunity to work with both the university and the provincial government. She’s always placed a great deal of emphasis on getting the results of research put into practice and policy.
Dr. Dell, Centennial Enhancement Chair in One Health and Wellness since 2016, sees her research to advance knowledge about human-animals bonds as a natural extension or blending of her previous work in addictions and Indigenous health and wellness. “My entire career up until this point has brought me to a place where I understand health to be in large part informed by our connections with one another, including animals and the environment”, she says. This understanding enables Dell to push at the boundaries of Western knowledge.
Impact of her work
Dell has played a major role in building the evidence-base by publishing extensively on the human-animal bond in collaboration with her colleagues. She co-led the first-ever study to demonstrate the clinical benefits of having therapy dogs visit patients in a hospital emergency department (ED). Because she knew there’d be naysayers, she and her team set up the research project as a controlled trial. “That was an extensive amount of work, but we also got an extensive amount of attention,” says Dell. That attention included coverage in the New York Times, People magazine, and on CNN. St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog teams are now available in several hospital Emergency Departments across Saskatchewan.
Dr. James Stempien, SHA provincial head of emergency medicine and USask professor, was one of Dell’s coauthors on that groundbreaking paper. Therapy animals, he says, are not a replacement for clinical care, but they are definitely a huge adjunct to that care. “The emergency department is not just about making a diagnosis,” says Stempien. “It’s also about providing empathy for the patients we see. For the patients who want to see a (therapy) dog, it has a magical sort of influence on them, and that’s not easy to capture in research.” Stempien says the team has received interest from hospitals across the country and abroad that are interested in introducing therapy dogs in their ED to benefit patients. “Colleen’s input into care in the emergency department is making a huge difference.”
In other work, Dr. Dell collaborated with the Audeamus Service Dogs program to co-lead the first Canadian study to explore the role of service dogs in substance use and PTSD recovery among veterans. That project led to 14 publications, an on-line toolkit and course, and 40 presentations and counting – including to a Canadian House of Commons committee. Dell didn’t think twice when Audeamus leaders suggested that if she really wanted to try to understand the experience of veterans she should train one of her dogs alongside them. “Working alongside Subie at the time informed every aspect of my work for the better, and still does”.
Lisa Schwann is Director of Community Services for St. John Ambulance Saskatchewan. She and Dell are volunteer handlers of therapy dogs and have taken their dogs everywhere from palliative care units, to wildfire evacuation centres, and major crashes including the Humboldt Broncos tragedy. “She’s really brought the value of therapy dogs to the forefront and has led so much needed research in terms of the emotional support, the mental health support, the physical benefits of having a therapy dog team come in and help out.”
In 2023, Dell founded the PAWSitive Connections Lab at USask, a program that’s a Canadian leader in both training and research around human-animal interaction and the relationship to mental health and wellbeing and addictions. And she’s currently in the process of coordinating a grant application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) – involving more than 80 partners – to establish a research centre for Canada, which would function as the national equivalent of the PAWSitive Connections Lab.
Dell adept at overcoming resistance
In the same way that she experienced pushback when she first started doing research on addiction among people who are part of the criminal justice system or the wellbeing of Indigenous women who have been criminalized, her work on the human-animal bond has similarly met with resistance.
“She’s a disruptor – in the best ways” says Linzi Williamson, an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Health Studies at USask. One of Williamson’s favorite stories about Dell’s determination and persistence comes from the 2023 Issues of Substance Conference, put on by CCSA. Dell and her colleagues had big plans to not only have therapy dogs at the conference, but to actually involve the dogs in an art therapy session. The conference organizers were super supportive, the conference venue a little less so.
Dell kept pushing back, politely. What would it take for them to change their mind and grant permission, she asked. As it turns out, the sticking point was hand hygiene. So, Dell agreed to pick up the tab for having a handwashing station within the breakout room. “Colleen just kept advocating, and not only did we get our “art with the dogs” space, but it ended up being the most popular workshop at the whole conference.”
Supporting the next generation of researchers: “I don’t know any other way…”
Mentorship matters to Dell. Over her career, Dell has supervised and been on the research and internship committees of well over 100 graduate and undergraduate students and likewise has employed some 50 plus research assistants. She developed and offered the first Studies in Addictions and Animals in Society courses in the Sociology Department at USask. Under her supervision, students run the campus St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog program. In recognition of this commitment to building capacity in the next generation of researchers, Dell received the 2023 USask College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Distinguished Mentor Award.
Dr. Linzi Williamson who now co-directs the PAWSitive Connections Lab along with Dell and Darlene Chalmers from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Regina, did her postdoctoral fellowship with Dell. Williamson recalls that when her original project fell through, Dell willingly brought her into the fold of one of her funded projects.
“I honestly think I wouldn’t be where I am today without her (Dell),” says Williamson, “She saw me as someone who was very capable, but just needed opportunities to learn how to lead. She helped me understand what it takes to do community-based research with big teams. She was also guiding me and helping me understand the system and how I could be my own person within it.”
Helping others grow and succeed just comes naturally, says Dell. She credits having a supportive family and dedicated school teachers early on and great professors at university. “I don’t know any other way,” she says. “I don't know how to do anything else but assist. It’s how I was raised.”
SHRF’s support has been incredibly important in her career, Dell says. Securing a SHRF Team Grant back in 2009 enabled her to build her research to a point where she could leverage that seed money to go on and tap into CIHR funding. “Everything builds on that foundation piece,” says Dell. “You need someone to help you get started. SHRF gave me that in the province and allowed me to branch off and explore different areas.”
The 2024 Achievement Award, she says, is recognition that when you think outside the box with research, you can do impactful things. “It’s validation to get out of our comfort zones, get out of the silos we work in, to work through the pushback however challenging it may be, and try things a little differently together.”
Dell shakes her head when she thinks back on some of the feedback her team received when they submitted their Emergency Department manuscript for peer review. She didn’t expect everyone to love the paper…but she also didn’t expect the one-sentence reply they received from one reviewer: ‘Dogs don’t belong in the emergency department.’
“People have these really strong views on animals, so that’s what we're always up against,” says Dell. She thinks her efforts to first try to see things from the animal’s perspective enhances her ability to share evidence about the health benefits of human-animal interactions in a way that helps people start to understand. And helps to ensure animal welfare.
“It’s like anything. Ten years from now we’re going to go “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we were doing that (questioning whether animals contribute to human wellness and vice versa). Right? Look at smoking. And now alcohol. The US surgeon general is calling for cancer warnings labels on alcohol. We have these transitions,” says Dell. “I am extremely proud that I’ve been able to contribute to this societal shift.”
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