5 Ways Therapy Dogs Help Students Cope with The Stress in College

By on December 28, 2021

It’s wonderful how a four-legged, dumb animal can cheer us up so much. We consider dogs as dumb just because they are a constant source of unimaginable selfless love and emotional support. A therapy dog is what people with emotional distress work with to get help with their situation. Let’s look at how therapy dogs and assignment help online can aid college students get through the pain.

1. Calming Effect:

Research on animal-assisted interventions shows that students love spending time with therapy dogs being on a designated break from studies. They exclaimed how the therapy dogs helped them calm down each session. The therapy dogs seem to enjoy the companies of students too. Their handler, without holding back, said that their dog act more excited when being commuted to the college.

Having any pets, especially dogs – therapy dogs, can help calm your nerves as a college student. If your college has a program for students who like to pet dogs, it’s all fine. But if they don’t – which is very likely – you can always adopt one from your nearest shelter or can have a puppy as a beginner.

Therapy dogs in general are calmer than normal dogs, which makes them the perfect candidate for homes where kids are being raised.

2. Inexpensive to Register:

Therapy dogs need registration to be identified as one. The cost of having your dog registered as one is comparatively low for new owners, which as a college student, may interest you.

What’s better is that your college might already have a department that takes care of the coordination process. Dogs are generally pretty calm and friendly in nature, training them to be therapy dogs is not a very huge hassle. But to register them as one may need some expert help, which is widely available and not very costly.

3. Easier to keep:

Keeping a therapy dog and taking care of it is as tough as any regular dog. They require the same amount of exercise, regular vet check-ups, proper feeding, attention, and grooming. But, having a therapy dog around has a much more calming effect than a regular dog. If you get anxious quite frequently, therapy dogs have shown to have a tremendous effect on increasing confidence among college students.

Exercising with your dog is the best way to grow a bond between you. Play with your therapy dog to have an easier relationship with them. Therapy dogs can be very energetic if given the chance, which they spread like a bonfire. You, being a college student, might need some of that to get through the next day.

Therapy pets are easier to handle around vets. While your regular dog might cry out or try to run during check-ups, therapy dogs might just enjoy the experience of having you by their side.

4. Preventing Homesickness:

College students are homesick. Period. 

Admit it, you don’t like attending the morning session or even the afternoon one. Would it not help having a dog around campus? Would you not like having a designated time to pet it. I would love it. I would’ve gone to college every day, even Sundays, just to pet it for an hour.

It’s proven, that having therapy dogs come to campus every day have significantly improved the attendance percentage of some students and even have increased the focus during classes. Increased satisfaction with life was also a positive side effect among severe homesick students.

Homesickness, as a condition, was also minimized through an 8-week long university pet therapy session with students who have already been diagnosed.

5. Willingness to Come to College:

Having a therapy dog around the campus have been shown to increase the willingness among students to come to college. With a designated time to pet or play with therapy dogs, college students even started to look forward to it while commuting to college. 

The Bottom Line:

A therapy dog might help students get through college years easier, but for college students with mental health issues, this might present itself as a curse. Depending on emotional support animals throughout your college life may present complications in professionals lives when they won’t be available to support you. 

A study, where Three scientists, named Torres, Arnold, and Shutt replaced the pictures of circles, squares, and diagrams with dog and cat pictures to see what happens in a math classroom. The experiment is considered a huge success, as most of the students admit to having less stress and anxiety during the class when the pet photos were shown and were given good topics to write about where they weren’t getting bored.

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