By Wanambwa M. Rogers

The notion of a comfort animal is relatively new especially in African countries, however, animals have been a part of human lives since the beginning of humanity.
I became intrigued by how an animal can be trained to cater and care for a person to the extent that it becomes an extension of the person themselves. In essence, reaching a time where if the animal were to be taken away, the person may even become devastated. The animals have also been proven to go through trauma when their human abandons them(whether voluntarily or not).
My fascination with the subject of comfort dogs in particular(which by the way have been man’s best friend forever) started with a documentary I saw on NBS TV-Uganda in which a community in Northern Uganda was using comfort dogs to help people cope with their problems that ranged from deafness, blindness, lameness to even depression. Many of these people’s problems stem from the LRA war that ravaged the place in the ’90s-early 2000s.
Apparently, these dogs give better comfort than people to these people who need a lot of comfort, isn’t that ironic?
Anyway, I was wonderfully surprised at how much the individuals had assimilated each other’s company(here I mean the dog-human symbiosis) and how each benefited from the other in a way that is not an ordinary attachment of such creatures.
The humans registered significant improvement in their lives due to this partnership and of course the dogs benefit by having a companion and benefactor.
This kind of thing is not unique to the people of Northern Uganda though, the military has been known to use comfort dogs to rehabilitate battle ridden soldiers and veterans who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD).
Guides dogs on the other hand are fairly common especially in the Western world where they help people navigate the busy cities. I guess they’re fairly known so I won’t talk much about them.

In the end, I believe both animal and human from the relationship.