Notably, the use of animal-assisted therapy is not without
risks53 although no adverse outcomes resulted from this study.
Bacha and Domachowske reported a case of a 16-year old boy with
Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy who was licked by a companion
dog on his new tracheostomy site and contracted Pasteurella multocida pneumonia.54 Although these reports exist for those children
in close contact with oral secretions of pets, the likelihood of
transmission of infection from an immunized animal to an immunocompetent child is low.53,55 In one report, 1690 patients visited
by AAT dogs over a 5 year period did not result in any zoonotic
infections.33 Another study of 284 nursing homes documented one
pet-related incident for every 100,000 h of resident live-in pet
contact.56 AAT appears to be a therapeutic modality in which the
benefits greatly outweigh the risks