The Team
Dr. Dell works with a large and varied teams across multiple projects. They have contributed to every aspect of her work. This includes animals, the land, funders, Indigenous Elders and communities, colleagues, students, family, academic mentors and anyone really who has pushed her to ‘show them the evidence’. She works particularly close with Dr. Darlene Chalmers, Faculty of Social Work, University of Regina.
In 2023, Drs. Dell, Chalmers, and Linzi Williamson (Department of Psychology & Health Studies, University of Saskatchewan) formed the PAWSitive Connections Lab, a research and implementation team dedicated to exploring interaction between animals and people. The Lab’s formation is based upon a decade of various work together. They place particular emphasis on the potential power of the connection between animals and humans for individuals recovering from addiction and mental health. They study how pets and people benefit each other, and focus on improving the health and welfare of both. Their scope encompasses a wide array of animals, with specific attention given to service dogs, therapy dogs, emotional support animals, and companion animals, commonly referred to as pets.
Dr. Dell deeply recognizes that humans' relationships with animals are reciprocal. The American Veterinary Medical Association defines the Human Animal Bond as: "a mutually beneficial and dynamic relationship between people and animals that is influenced by behaviors essential to the health and wellbeing of both. This includes, among other things, emotional, psychological, and physical interactions of people, animals, and the environment". The various teams Dr. Dell leads and works alongside are committed to this understanding specifically and animal welfare generally.
Dr. Dell adopts both a One Health, with a focus on zooeyia, and One Welfare approach in her work.
- One Health focuses on the interface between the health of humans, animals and the environment.
- Zooeyia recognizes the positive benefits to human health from interacting with animals, focusing on companion animals.
- One Welfare concentrates on the interconnections between animal welfare, human wellbeing and the environment.
Dr. Dell is guided by positive welfare, generally understood as accounting for the positive experiences animals have and not not just the absence of negative ones. Dr. Dell views it as a strengths-based approach. The 2020 Five Domains Model is available here (poster summary available here).
Dr. Dell's commitment to recognizing reciprocity and the Human Animal Bond has been evident since she started in this field. Her first peer-reviewed publication that acknowledged working with dogs in an Animal Assisted Intervention capacity listed Anna-Belle the Therapy Dog as first author on their publication - Questioning ‘fluffy’: A Dog’s Eye View of Animal-assisted Interventions (AAI) in the Treatment of Substance Misuse in Substance Use & Misuse. Dr. Dell's first ever public presentation about this work was also alongside Anna-Belle. A few more recent presentations include:
- Rath, G., Williamson, L., & Dell, C. 2021. Considering Canine Welfare Among Service Dogs Paired with Veterans. Human-Animal Interaction Section of Division 17 of the American Psychological Association Annual Convention. Virtual format.
- Williamson, L., Dell, C., Carey, B., Pavelich, A., McKenzie, H., Gibson, M., & Cruz, M. 2021. Online Therapy Dog Programming: What’s in it for the Dog? International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) Conference, Virtual Platform.
- Dell, C., Williamson, L., McKenzie, H., Carey, B., Cruz, M., Gibson, M., & Fletcher-Hildebrand, S. 2021. Online Therapy Dog Programming: Ethical Considerations. Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) Conference, Virtual Platform.
Meet some of the team members Dr. Dell works with, including humans and canine members of the pack from the USask PAWS Your Stress Therapy Dog program and the Service Dog project Dr. Dell leads.