You may have heard of service dogs or even emotional support animals, and maybe you’ve even seen these animal companions employed for those with body-focused repetitive behaviours (BFRBs). Haley Sciola, founder of BFRB Dogs describes them as follows.
“A BFRB dog is just another adorably fluffy, potentially slobbery, and unconditionally loving tool in your toolbox of recovery and life management.”
While there may not be a traditional kind of cure for BFRBs, Sciola believes that we can take action now to improve life with BFRBs and mitigate the negative impacts.
BFRB Dogs, a US-based business, began as an idea in 2018 after she met Sarah Pennington, an outspoken member of the BFRB community, and her dog Daisy at a one-day conference. Sciola notes that the universe had her back that day since she almost missed her flight to that event. While she says she’s always loved dogs and read an encyclopedia of dog breeds from front to back when she was younger, the idea of this kind of business didn’t come to mind until she’d met Pennington.
A dog named Daisy, the first service dog prospect Sciola trained. Daisy now works from home only and was a joy to work with.
But Sciola is more than just a dog trainer—she doesn’t train the dog and leave you hoping for the best. She enables folks to use their tools, including dogs, to help with their BFRBs.
“I am a fan of training myself out of a job and empowering clients to continue training without me so I can help more people and dogs,” she says.
The way BFRB Dogs works begins with an initial consult, scheduled through her website, bfrbdogs.com. The consult includes getting to know each other, seeing if you’re a good fit to work together, and discussing whether you already have a dog yet or not. From there, she conducts Zoom sessions where she coaches on how to train your own dog if you have one. She also works with people that don’t yet have dogs, making sure they have resources to move forward.
“I’m the coach and you are the trainer,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if your dog knows what Zoom is. I’m training you more than your dog.”
This online business model has allowed BFRB Dogs to flourish, and Sciola has had people contact her from across the globe. While the majority of her client base is in the US, Sciola has also worked with clients in Canada and spoken to people from Ireland, Hungary, Israel, France, Scotland, and Pakistan. Her US-based clients have given her the opportunity to work with some people in person and board a few dogs.
The dogs she trains are mainly emotional support animals (ESAs), which, for BFRBs, mean “any dog that has been trained to help a person mitigate their BFRB and related behaviours or comorbid disorders.” These differ from a full service dog in that they don’t have authorization to enter public spaces. On the other hand, in the US, a service dog has the right to access public spaces to accompany their human outside of the home and has been trained to alleviate disability by performing work or tasks. Training a BFRB service dog, she notes, can be difficult across international lines.
BFRB Dog (ESA), Echo, left, was trained at home with Sciola to nudge his mom’s hand away when she starts picking or pulling. Foster pup, Ranger, right, is busy looking cute.
Sciola is an Animal Behavior College Certified Dog Trainer and is also working toward her Certified Professional Dog Trainer—Knowledge Assessed accreditation. As for her training style, she says she uses LIMA—least-invasive, minimally aversive, which also leans toward fear-free and positive reinforcement training methods. E-collars (shock collars), prong collars, choke chains, invisible electric fences, and physical corrective measures are off the table for her.
“My philosophy is such that those methods may detract from the relationship between human and dog,” she explains.
That relationship between human and dog is key for her, especially since people with BFRBs often have a more sensitive nature. Does that mean that everyone with a BFRB is a good candidate for a BFRB dog though? Not necessarily.
“Young kids are generally not great candidates for full BFRB service dogs because I wouldn’t want them to be unable to cope without a dog,” she says. “However, dogs can be great ESAs and tools in anyone’s toolbox, regardless of age.”
If you’re willing to do the work, lean into the dog as a tool, and appreciate the “symbiotic relationship,” Sciola feels you’ll be a good fit. She also says it’s important to remember that “they aren’t the answer to all your problems. They are dogs, not robots.”
Bellie and Sciola on the hospital grounds in Belmont, MA when she was recovering from depression. Bellie was allowed to visit and it helped Sciola immensely to see her. Photo credit: Patrick Liam O’Sullivan
Sciola, who lives with excoriation (skin-picking) disorder, says she had an ESA named Bellie but says if she’d had a full BFRB service dog, a lot of the emotional impact of living with a BFRB may have been alleviated. She feels she may have coped better with her anxiety and panic with deep pressure therapy, which service dogs can help with.
Ultimately, she hopes that BFRB Dogs can help people “live their lives in a way that emphasizes the best parts of themselves.”
BFRB Dogs is still small with a focus on building the business via online training. Sciola says the business may grow to include more trainers, but she’ll have to see what shape the business takes and how it grows. For now, her goal is to reach as many people as possible.
“BFRB Dogs is helping me reclaim myself as a whole human, which in turn I hope allows me to walk others into a new day, one woof at a time.”
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Photos used with permission courtesy of Haley Sciola