Education as a lifelong developmental process of a person occurs through engagement with the surrounding social and natural environment. At the center of educational thinking and action is the individual, who must be supported holistically - "with head, heart, and hand" (Pestalozzi). Valuable impulses for a contemporary design of educational and upbringing processes are provided to pedagogy through the sub-discipline of animal-assisted education, as it opens up diverse, mostly untapped learning opportunities for children and adolescents. It sharpens the awareness of educators regarding the child-environment relationships. It can be a building block of integrative and inclusive overall concepts and support the professional integration of young people with special needs. It calls for a redesign of (pre-)school processes.