Monday, the dreaded day of the week. Students get slammed with work and have to sit in hours of classes, knowing that they have to repeat this cycle for five more days. Many students feel a sense of relief when the bell rings for lunch. They finally have a break from their classes and work, and get a chance to decompress and relax with their friends. However, on this particular Monday, a surprise was waiting to cheer the students up during lunch. With wagging tails and big eyes, two puppies greeted everyone and gave all of the student’s a little piece of love to take with them throughout their day.

For mental health awareness month, the Divine Canines organization visited the library during both lunches on Monday to allow students to interact with different therapy dogs. Students were able to give the dogs treats, pet them and hold them.

“I just smiled immediately,” senior Mia Trejo said. “They’re so cute and I was so happy [to see the puppies].”

The Divine Canines organization trains all of the therapy dogs before they work with people. The dogs must first pass a Canine Good Citizen test, where they learn basic commands. They then go through a training class, where they’ll graduate and become a therapy dog.

All of the dogs in the organization are the volunteers’ personal dogs that are put through training. Schwartz’s poodle, Pippi, is a rescue dog who was certified as a therapy dog in May of last year.

“I specifically looked in a bunch of rescues to find a dog that had the temperament to do this kind of thing,” Schwartz said. “With a rescue, the dog hasn’t necessarily been treated all that well before they come in. [It’s] not so easy to find [dogs to train].”

Hatch, a dachshund mix, was another therapy dogs that came to visit during lunch. This visit was his second time getting to help people after just having graduated to be a therapy dog.

“This is our very first visit here,” volunteer and chair of the board of directors Sarah Thomas said. “Someone with the school reached out to our executive director and asked us to come visit. We’re really happy to be here.”

For students, this has been a positive and helpful experience for them.

“Dogs are just fun to be around,” junior Lainey Whittington said. “Being able to hold something and not have to be rushing somewhere is very grounding.”

Being experienced in bringing their dogs to different places, the volunteers have seen the effects of therapy dogs on students.

“Students are under a lot of pressure,” Thomas said. “I think that the benefit of having a dog around, a calming presence, is really valuable. It just brightens up someone’s day to visit with a dog.”

Students believe that more activities such as this are different, fun to do and good for them.

“It’s a good break in the day,” Trejo said. “It helps [students] destress and have something fun and sweet to distract [them] from a busy day.”

According to Schwartz, therapy dogs are beneficial to positively impacting student’s mental health.

“Dogs love you unconditionally,” Schwartz said. “They don’t care what you look like, they don’t care anything about you, as long as you’re a nice person and treat them well.”

This story was originally published on The Wolfpack on October 22, 2024.