SEOUL: On a recent afternoon at a library tucked beneath the wooded slopes of Achasan in Seoul, an eight-year-old girl sat turning the pages of a picture book with one hand as she read aloud, while gently stroking the soft golden fur of a labrador retriever with the other.
The retriever slowly settled onto the floor, closed its eyes and drifted off to sleep. Book by book, the girl’s voice, barely above a whisper when she began, grew steadily louder and more confident.
The two were partners in a child-animal reading programme run by the Korean Human-Animal Interaction Association (KHAI) on June 30. The organisation comprises faculty members, graduates of Konkuk University’s Graduate School of Bio & Healing Convergence Animal Assisted Therapy Specialisation and other experts in the field.
Though their session lasted only 30 minutes, and no one could say whether the retriever understood the story, the girl walked away feeling a connection that defied words.
“When I was reading a story about a magical bathhouse for dogs, its ears twitched a couple of times. Sometimes, it’d lift its head from the floor and look right at me, and it really felt like it was listening to me,” she said.
The session, attended by three elementary school students, marked the second round of READ, short for Reading Education Assistance Dogs, since its launch in March in partnership with the Achasan Forest Library in Seoul’s Gwangjin-gu.
“Children often worry about mispronouncing words while reading and it’s easy for them to lose confidence when they feel they’re being evaluated,” said Moon Hyun-min, a KHAI official who leads the animal-assisted reading programme for children.
“Animals don’t judge or correct the way children read. They simply stay by their side, listen and wait until they’re finished. In that kind of relationship, children let go of their anxiety and naturally begin to open books.”
The programme pairs children aged five through the lower elementary grades with a dog and its handler.
ChamE, the six-year-old labrador retriever that assisted the girl during the reading session, passed the association’s suitability assessment earlier in June. The screening evaluated ChamE’s friendliness towards people and his ability to remain calm in unfamiliar environments and cope with stress.
ChamE’s handler, whose surname was Shin, also spent several months preparing for his debut in June by completing the programme’s specialised training in animal behaviour and welfare, child development and techniques for supporting children’s reading.
“My job is to support the interaction between the child and ChamE, but I also learn a great deal while coming up with questions that encourage children to think and helping them uncover a book’s underlying messages,” she said.
Shin began studying human-animal interaction in early 2025 and has since volunteered in a variety of related activities with teenagers and seniors.
“ChamE has changed a lot too. He used to be shy around strangers, but now he greets them first and shows his affection by licking their hands,” she added.
The programme welcomes all children, but its therapeutic mission centres on those with hearing or language challenges.
Among them are children from migrant-background families who are developing their Korean language skills.
Moon said: “There was one time when a child with hearing loss was reading to Leo, one of our reading cats. Throughout the session, Leo looked quietly into the child’s eyes. It was as if he was saying, ‘You’re doing great.’
“The child kept looking back at Leo while reading, and by the end of the session had the biggest smile.”
For deaf and hard-of-hearing children, particularly those with residual hearing or who use hearing aids or cochlear implants, reading aloud to the dogs helps improve spoken language by providing repeated opportunities to practise pronunciation, articulation and speech fluency, officials said.
While the programme consists primarily of dogs, its roster of therapy animals is expected to gradually expand to include cats and other companion animals, officials said.
Founded in September 2021, KHAI modelled the programme on an animal-assisted reading initiative launched in 1999 by Intermountain Therapy Animals, a Utah-based non-profit in the US.
KHAI’s reading dogs do not just listen to books. They read hearts too.
In 2025, five dog-handler teams from the association took part in an emotional support programme for older patients at a hospice in Gyeonggi Province.
Through light walks and quiet moments spent sitting side by side, simply looking at one another without the need for many words, the older adults experienced degrees of both emotional and physical recovery.
Another regular event is Happy Time, held at Konkuk University, which gives students coping with academic and job-search stress the opportunity to interact with the therapy dogs as a way to unwind and recharge.
With the number of pet owners in South Korea surpassing 15 million, animals are increasingly viewed as lifelong companions rather than simply pets, fuelling growing interest in human-animal interaction programmes, according to the association.
“Since the Covid-19 pandemic, social isolation and mental health have become global challenges. Our vision is to reconnect people with one another and with society by fostering mutually beneficial relationships with animals,” Moon said.
The association’s animal-assisted therapy initiatives have recently gained fresh momentum with support from the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
In partnership with KHAI, the city plans to train around 20 animal-assisted intervention activity teams in 2026, who will work with child and youth organisations across Seoul to facilitate a range of interaction programmes.
“We hope to help children and adolescents experiencing isolation, anxiety and depression achieve greater emotional well-being through healthy interactions with animals,” a city official said.
“At the same time, we will ensure the programme is carried out safely and responsibly by strictly adhering to animal welfare and ethical standards, allowing participants to naturally appreciate the value of life." - The Korea Herald/ANN
