My daughter and I deliver the local Victoria News free newspaper together twice a week. I was reading an article about the benefits
of pet relationships in health related settings in the Wednesday, December 28
edition of this paper. The article went
on to say that interactions with dogs lowers stress, the focus is on the dog
and if you have a focus the symptoms reduce.
Dog therapy is calming and lowers anxiety levels so much.
The benefits of volunteer therapy dogs have also been
recognized with university students and for children at elementary schools.
Twice a year before exam time, UVIC student volunteers
organize an event to help students get through one of the most stressful parts
of the year. Along with a variety of
other free activities pet therapy dogs are brought on campus to help ease
student anxiety. Basically the event
involves sitting on the floor, petting and playing with friendly dogs and
talking with their owners.
At my daughters school the school counselor has a rescue dog
named Jimmy who accompanies her on class visits and is available for kids to
spend time with in her office.
I have tried this strategy before in my classroom and I love
it! One year when I was teaching first
year students a Patient Care course I brought my five year old Havanese dog Coco
in for a visit a couple of days prior to final exams. He is not a certified pet therapy dog but he
is super friendly, loves people and wagged and licked his way around the room. He spent the 50 minute block with us in class
and both he and the students thoroughly enjoyed themselves. These students now have nine months left
before graduation and this term whilst doing a liaison position for the college
where I work, I visited them at their clinical practicum sites. These students expressed once again how much
they loved being able to spend time with Coco . I would most definitely do this again for
students as I think that it is a great way to ease stress and anxiety levels.
Whether you are a dog love or not I believe that dogs make us
healthier and can help to create a positive learning environment in classrooms.
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